


A Light Untouched

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Bondage, Character Death, Dirty Talk, First Time, Infidelity, M/M, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Toys, Torture, dub-con, foodsmut, minor hints at D/s, non-con (not in main pairings), underage where the age of consent is 18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:48:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1253473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Redemption came in the space between breaths, in the jarring impact of coincidence, in the patient toil of years – for Severus Snape, it came when he met Harry Potter, the culmination of his life's work brought to glory in an instant."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for klynie1 in the 2007 reversathon. She requested: "Snape/Harry AU - A chance meeting in a taxicab leads to love. Rating is writer's choice. Please, no Harry or Snape death."
> 
> Many, many thanks and grateful smooches to schemingreader, virginie_m, gingertart50, brightfeather, and snarry_fan7! I owe a debt of gratitude to each and every one of you, and also to the marvelous people who bounced ideas for me and gave me encouragement to write this.

Redemption came in the space between breaths, in the jarring impact of coincidence, in the patient toil of years – for Severus Snape, it came when he met Harry Potter, the culmination of his life's work brought to glory in an instant. It came when he left the Ministry, having filed the papers for his presentation at the national potions symposium.  
  
He stumbled when a man dashed out of the telephone booth, running into him.   
  
"Watch –"  
  
"Sorry, sir." He slipped under Severus's arm and into his waiting taxi and grabbed the door, struggling to close it.  
  
Severus latched onto him by the collar of his ragged gray shirt, pulling him back out of the taxi. "Where do you think you're going?"  
  
No British wizard who had come through Hogwarts in the past decade would have had the gall to cross him, even over a cab ride. None of the wider wizarding public with eyes to read the Prophet would have dared. That this man had dared – Severus's grip tightened.  
  
The man twisted around, his threadbare shirt tearing under Severus's fingers.  
  
"Let me go – please, sir. Those Auroras are after me, I –"  
  
He squirmed free from Severus's grasp, ducking into the cab. Severus retained his grip on the door, holding it open and sliding in after him.  
  
"Please – please, sir."  
  
Severus's nerves sparked with longing, an inchoate need burning through him, and all from the one touch, the man's hand resting on his forearm. It was fire, it was ecstasy, it was blessed surcease from pain – Severus swallowed, yielding to his pleas, and slammed the door shut.  
  
"Islington," the man said, and the driver nodded, pulling away from the curb.  
  
Severus looked out the rear window to see Tonks, stumbling over herself, and Kingsley picking her up off the pavement. Severus cast a Befuddlement Charm on the taxi and turned to his companion. "Well?"  
  
The man was no more than a boy, just old enough to be out of Hogwarts. Thin, with a fierce set to his jaw and large gleaming eyes, he stared unblinking at Severus.   
  
Tousled hair, green eyes, a pair of glasses askew on his nose – Severus leaned forward to brush the fringe of hair off the boy's forehead, revealing the famous scar. "Harry Potter."  
  
A mirror of his father, a matchstick waif – Severus had saved him, had protected him, had preserved him from darkness and saved him for the grubby gray Muggle world. Potter's shirt was threadbare, the cuffs fraying, and he used it to wipe his glasses, smearing them further.  
  
Severus fingered his wand and, with a sidelong glance at the driver, cleaned the lenses with a simple spell.   
  
Potter dropped his glasses and fumbled for them, his head bumping against Severus's knee as he bent down. A thrill ran through Severus at the contact, and he glared at Potter's messy hair, moving away.   
  
With a flourish, Potter found his glasses and put them back on, blinking at Severus. "You're one of them, aren't you – one of them Auroras? Are you going to turn me in?"  
  
This was Severus's redemption. There was a tangible nimbus around Potter, bright and clean and entirely pure.   
  
Severus felt it calling his soul, felt the burn of Potter's magic like a fire on his fading Mark, an addictive toxin in his blood. He leaned toward Potter, wanting and needing more, and flinched when he recoiled.  
  
"I am most assuredly not an Auror and I have no intention of doing anything of the sort."   
  
Open-mouthed as a goldfish, Potter stared at him. Severus had seen the same vacant expression on his father's face – vapid and useless, nothing more.   
  
"The Green Dragon Inn in Hyde Park," he told the driver, who cursed and veered into the next lane, making a sharp turn.  
  
"What?" Harry said. "I'm not going anywhere with you, not to Hyde Park. Islington, please, driver."  
  
"Won't you come with me and let me protect you from the Aurors?" Severus asked, leaning closer to the intoxicating glow of power that clung to Harry. This was his reason for living, and Severus shuddered with the thought of letting it slip away. "I can keep you safe."  
  
"I don't know you," Harry said. "Why would you do that for me?" He scrunched up against the cab door, putting his legs up between them, and glared at Severus through his fringe of messy hair. "And you can stop leaning over here and leering at me, already. I don't even know you and I don't trade my body for protection."  
  
Severus leaned away from him then, gritting his teeth at the gaping distance. He shook his head, trying to smile at Harry. There was power to be had here, within reach and yet untouchable. There it was, at his fingertips, and he trod with care, not yet able to reach for it.   
  
"I'm not asking that of you. I'm trying to help you because I've been on the bad side of the Aurors myself."  
  
"Islington," Potter said to the driver, not looking at Severus. The cab swerved again, sending Severus lurching into the door. Potter caught himself before he could be sent sprawling into Severus's lap.  
  
"Hyde Park, driver. What will you do, Harry, if the Aurors came to your home? How will you defend against them alone? Let me help you."  
  
"You're daft, absolutely daft. You don't even know why they're after me."  
  
"I know that you didn't do it." Nothing had twisted him, and nothing had touched him. He'd wasted away in the Muggle world, squandering the talent that was his birthright, but he'd never killed. He'd never dabbled in dark magic or the spells that twist and break the soul – he'd never dreamed of death, never felt a life ending at his fingertips.  
  
"Still no reason for me to go off with a complete bloody stranger, or for you to help a complete bloody stranger."   
  
The driver scowled at them in the rearview mirror. "Can you two make a decision before I run out of petrol here?"  
  
Severus waited, watching Harry fidget. Silence stretched between them like soft caramel, thickening the air and clogging his senses. Too sweet, too long – the driver broke the spell.  
  
"Well? You two going to honeymoon here, or what? Where am I taking you?"  
  
Harry looked up at Severus through his eyelashes. "Hyde Park," he said. The driver grunted and turned at the corner, still scowling at them.   
  
The hotel gleamed in the sunlight, a Muggle-repelling ward shining on its façade – the driver stopped just before it and glared at them again. "Can't even get the address right, can you? Where'd you want to go then?"  
  
"I must have misremembered the address," Severus said, handing him the fare and a tip. "This is fine, thank you."  
  
Harry came through the anti-Muggle wards with no problems, his only hesitation coming at the magical stairs. Glancing at him, Severus shook his head and froze the steps with a flick of his wand before proceeding up.  
  
Harry stepped into the hotel room after Severus, lingering on the threshold and looking askance at the cauldron bubbling on the bedside table. "I'm here for a potions conference," Severus told him. "I'd just stopped by the Ministry to register for it when I met you ... quite a bit of luck, really. I'd hate to see the Aurors capture another innocent man."  
  
Severus turned away to take off his cloak. It swirled through the air, a dramatic billow of black fabric, as he swung it off his shoulders and up onto its hook.  
  
The flutter of the fabric came close to Harry, almost touching him. "What's that?"  
  
"Nothing that need concern you," Severus said. He put the cloak out of Potter's reach. It was darkness, tempered by an unknown spell – protection and warmth and safety for him, but darkness could not be allowed to sully Harry.  
  
"It ... it tingles."  
  
"It's magic," Severus said. He ushered Potter into the sitting room, guiding him to the sofa and pouring tea from the pot left there by the house elves.  
  
"There's no such thing as magic."  
  
Staring at him, Severus tested the upswell of magic that came from Harry. Pure, singing along his nerves, in harmony with his own power – parentage aside, past aside, there was no denying that Harry was a wizard. "No such thing as magic?" he repeated. "Are you not a wizard?"  
  
Harry began to shake when Severus lost patience with his denials and levitated the nearest teacup. The room shook with him, uncontrolled magic spurting out of him in waves. The potion in the cauldron burbled, and Severus cast a hasty stasis spell on it, steadying the cauldron against upsets and magical overflow. The teacup rattled on the table when Severus set it down, and the windows vibrated with a high, tinny sound that set his teeth on edge.  
  
"There's no such thing as magic," Harry repeated.  
  
"What was that just now then?"  
  
"I – I didn't – I didn't do it." He was trembling, the magic vibrating through the air around him, ready to overflow again. Severus sat down next to him, putting a cautious arm around his shoulders.  
  
Harry flinched away, and Severus rubbed his shoulders. "There's nothing wrong with a spurt of accidental magic. It happens to all wizarding children, anyone who isn't trained to control it."  
  
After a stiff moment, Harry leaned into his touch. "Magic is real," he said, and when Harry didn't deny it, Severus lifted a hand to stroke his hair.  
  
"I didn't do it, I didn't do it," became Harry's mantra, and Severus made no attempt to shush him.   
  
Potter shook under his fingers – still, the swell of pure magic, the spark singing in his veins was undeniable. Severus took comfort in the touch and the energy that sparkled along his nerves, electric and bright. This was hope for redemption, this was what he had wrought, this was the light to erase all of his darkness.  
  
Potter's eyes were tear-bright, but his gaze was steady as he looked up at Severus. "I didn't do it – I didn't kill that man," he said.  
  
"Which man are you accused of killing?"  
  
Harry shrugged, brushing Severus away. "Some homeless man," he said. "Those Auroras, they said that I did it but I never did."  
  
"Aurors, Harry, not Auroras. They're like police for wizards, and they make mistakes just as their Muggle counterparts do. Who do they say that you killed?"  
  
"Some homeless man." Harry stiffened his shoulders, wrapping his arms around himself. He was all elbows, all angles, thin and ragged as he was. A mere boy, he was ignorant of everything it seemed, denying magic and denying the connection between them, and yet Severus's skin prickled, shiver-cold, at the loss of contact.  
  
"What did the Aurors say, Harry?"  
  
"I didn't –"  
  
"I know you didn't do it and I trust you. I'm trying to understand what happened – will you tell me?" Severus spoke soft and low to soothe him, putting a hand on his shoulder and waiting until he relaxed. "Who do they say you killed?"  
  
Harry's shoulders hunched up, but he didn't pull away from Severus's touch. "I don't know, okay? Some homeless man, I guess. He didn't have a name or else they wouldn't tell it to me."  
  
"A homeless man? A Muggle?"  
  
Harry pulled away then, the air swirling around him – hot and dry, strong enough to ruffle the brewing potion even through the spells Severus had put up to ward it. "Stop it," Severus told him. "Control yourself, Harry – deep breaths, that's right. I don't know how you manage to get through a day in the Muggle world but I suppose that you've got your father's luck."  
  
The wind stopped, and Harry stared at Severus. "My father's luck? Did you know him? Did you know that he was killed in a car crash – how is that lucky?"   
  
"Harry ..." Severus stopped. Ignorant indeed, and Severus was not the person to change that, not the best person to redefine his life and perturb his innocence. "Time for that later, I think. How did the Aurors find you? Who do they say that you killed?"  
  
"I don't know! They kept saying that I knew who it was, but I don't know. I didn't do it, I would never kill anyone, I didn't do it –"  
  
Severus shook him before he could start to panic again, and Harry's magic burned against the palm of his hand, a comforting smooth fire. It was the song of magic to magic, washing away the darkness of Severus's past – it was perfect and irresistible, and when Harry didn't object, Severus kept a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Harry ... did they say that you killed You-Know-Who?"  
  
Harry blinked and nodded, his wary expression returning. Severus rubbed his shoulder, and then Harry scooted away from him and took refuge on the far end of the sofa.  
  
"I'm not a freak," Harry said. "You can't bring me to your hotel room and float a few teacups, expecting me to believe you like you're the reincarnation of Merlin or something. I'm not a fool and I'm no freak – there's no such thing as magic."  
  
Severus stared at him and felt the withdrawal of Harry's magic, felt it from his skin through to his bones. The resonance was dimmer, the electric sparkle faded to nothing, and he reached out to touch Harry's shoulder again, looking to fan that diminished spark. "Magic is real – you know it is, Harry. What about all of the strange things that have happened to you? Do you never make things happen when you're angry?  
  
"Just because the Muggles you live with have called you a freak, doesn't make it so. Magic is real and is perfectly normal."   
  
They both jumped when a knock sounded on the door. "Severus? We know you've got Harry Potter in there. We've followed you here from the Ministry, and there's no use trying to deny it."  
  
A quick ward and silencing spell shut off Kingsley's voice, and Severus turned back to Harry. "Look, I know that you don't trust me very much," he said. "Believe me, though, it's best to cooperate with them, now that they've found us. These Aurors aren't going to hurt you, and I'll be here to help you if they try anything. It's all right, Harry, it really is."  
  
"If I don't believe you?"  
  
"Then I'll take you away from here and help you to hide," Severus said. He offered his hand to Harry, his blood singing in his veins – trust from his salvation, trust from his enemy's son, only a touch away from him.  
  
"I believe you," Harry said.   
  
Triumph boiled in Severus's veins when Harry took his hand, and it was enough – this touch, freely given, was trust and promise. With an effort, Severus released Harry's hand and left the circle of his aura, removing the wards and opening the door. Severus let Kingsley and Tonks bumble in, he let them give their clumsy and belated explanations and apologies to Harry, and in the end, he let them take Potter away.   
"Wotcher, Snape," Tonks said. "Why'd you make off with the boy here?"  
  
"Perhaps because you fools frightened him by telling him that he was a murderer, or perhaps because you yanked him into the wizarding world with no explanation and no courtesy whatsoever?"   
  
Tonks frowned, her hair going from blue to bubblegum pink. "We didn't – he didn't –"  
  
"Exactly. Forgive me if I am unsurprised by the incompetence displayed yet again in your department. With your less than stellar past ..."  
  
"There's no need to corrupt him before he's set foot in the wizarding world for more than a day, Snape ..."  
  
"Enough, Tonks." Kingsley ignored Severus's barb and turned to Harry, kneeling next to the sofa. He was close, too close to the boy, and Severus itched to push him away, to push him out of the room. "You look just like your father," he said. "He was an Auror, too."  
  
Harry leaned away from Kingsley, casting an uncertain look up at Severus. "He was?"  
  
"He was." Kingsley hesitated and then rocked back on his heels, giving Harry his space.  
  
"Look ... Your father was a great man and a great Auror, Harry, and I think that you could be the same. We know that you didn't go to Hogwarts, but there's no reason why you can't be trained in magic now that you're of age, and you can become one of us. What do you say? Are you interested in following in your father's footsteps?"  
  
Severus reached across the sofa to touch Harry, his fingers falling short. He let them hover in the air for a second and then, struggling to suppress a traitorous blush at Kingsley's intense, considering look, withdrew his hand. "It's hardly fair to pose that question to him. He knows nothing of the wizarding world, knows nothing of Aurors except for the fact that you yanked him from his life, accused him of murder, and terrified him into running away."  
  
"We didn't mean to do any of that, Harry – I'm sorry. We didn't mean to frighten you at all. I hadn't realized that you knew so little of the wizarding world."  
  
Tonks plopped down on the sofa between Harry and Severus, upsetting the teapot and changing her hair from pink back to blue. She fumbled for her wand, aiming it at the spilled tea, but Severus waved her away and cleaned up the spill himself.   
  
"When you were a baby," Tonks said, "the most terrifying Dark wizard of the century tried to kill you, Harry, and you survived. We all owe our lives to you, and we want to repay you – take you away from this dreary Muggle world and bring you to the world where you belong. It's where your parents would have wanted you to grow up, I'm sure, and if you'd gone to Hogwarts, you would have ... well."  
  
Harry shifted on the sofa, moving away from Tonks and closer to the edge. Kingsley bent down in a crouch, putting one hand on the upholstery, a fraction of a breath away from Harry.   
  
"The thing is, Harry – we need you. The Ministry thinks that there's another Dark wizard about to rise, there have been foul rumors coming to us for years now. With a little training, you'll be the most powerful wizard of your generation – training that you should have already had, training that your parents would have wanted you to have. With just a little bit of training, you can save us all again."  
  
Severus scowled and closed his eyes. He refused to watch this sickening, schmaltzy courtship dance, this blatant manipulation. With Tonks, her magic loud and jarring to his senses, on the sofa between Severus and Harry – the magic, the spark that he felt from Harry was muted to extinction. It was a loss that thrummed through Severus's marrow, his bones aching with the diminished resonance.   
  
Severus was the first person Harry had trusted in this world, the first person to guide him through the unfamiliar and reassure him. A word would have held Harry back, a word would have kept him at Severus's side – trusting and naïve, he was easy to influence, but even Severus's Slytherin side could not take advantage of his innocence.   
  
Harry gave him a look through his eyelashes, the black net of them dimming the light in his eyes, and when Severus refused to respond, Harry turned away. "All right," he said. "I ... I'll go with you."   
  
Foolish, beautiful boy – and yet, Severus could not stop him. Redemption slipped through his fingers, and hope sang through his veins and then sizzled to a halt.  
He reached for Harry, just as he was about to cross the threshold. "You can come to me if you need anything," he said.   
  
His fingers brushed against Harry's wrist. His entire being was afire with the touch, Harry's purity enough to burn him clean.   
  
"Come on, Harry," Tonks said. "Don't worry about old Snape here. We'll give you everything you need at the Ministry. It's going to be awesome –"  
  
"Thank you," Harry said to Severus. He grasped Severus's hand for a second, their fingers curling together, and then he left, ducking out the door with a last tentative smile – and in the ache left by his absence, it was not enough.   
  
Severus stared at the door, the wood dark and sparkling with the residue of years of wards and spells. His hand still vibrated with the glow of Harry's magic, his room still sparkled with the force of Harry's presence.   
  
His cloak hung on its peg by the door, a dark silent shadow that served as witness to their meeting. The darkness of the cloak was leavened by Harry, by Harry's almost-touch, and when Severus reached out to touch it, his nerves sizzled.   
  
This was Harry's signature, Harry's magic strengthening the spells that had wrought this cloak. This was darkness muted by light – this was the redemption that Severus had been seeking.  
  
\-------  
  
Severus was surrounded by corpses. He had been asked to demonstrate his mastery of the Unforgivables, the power of his curses, his potent potions, his subtle charms, and he had obliged. They were only Muggles and they lay in piles around him. They were awkward and cold – limbs bloated, faces distended, hair tangled. They were bloody, charred, faceless, nameless. It was a study in destruction, a glory of death.  
  
A woman knelt at his feet, wetting his robes with her sobs. She clutched at his ankles, and he shuddered at her unclean touch. He lifted her up and tilted her head back, pouring a potion down her throat.  
  
She cried and gurgled, clutching at his shoulders in a frenzy of desperation. Severus pushed her away and when she fell to the ground, he urged her on with taunts and threats. "One kiss from you, my pretty, and I'll spare your life – just one kiss."  
  
She reached for him, groping, her fingers splayed midair, latching onto his robes. He stroked her tear-stained cheek and bent down for a kiss. It was vicious and deep, he bit her lips until he tasted her dirty blood and spat it back in her face. She crumpled to the ground, still weeping and clutching at him – then the potion did its work, awakened by the magic that he had breathed into her mouth with that kiss. She froze in death, her fingers still clutching his robe and her blue eyes wide.  
  
Severus kicked her away and scorched her corpse with a blasting spell, laughing as she burned. He turned in search of his next victim.  
  
"You have done well, my Severus," the Dark Lord said.   
  
Severus dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead to the blood-splattered ground. "My Lord, I live to serve."  
  
The rumble of his Master's voice, a dark deep-throated purr that vibrated through his bones, a silken shroud that wrapped around him, roused Severus to ecstasy. This, this more than a dirty woman's kiss, this more than the power that roared through his veins, this more than the destruction he wrought, this was enough to push him over the edge into orgasmic bliss. Obedient and still, Severus knelt, afire with the thrill of submission, trembling with the ecstasy of his Master's praise, his cock hard and aching.  
  
"You wish to please me."  
  
"Always, my Lord."  
  
"Very good," he said, and Severus shuddered with pleasure at his words.   
  
"Take this man, Severus. Make him scream as you fuck him. Make him plead for death. Do your worst to him, my own, and prove your worth to me."  
  
Severus bit his lip, using the pain as an anchor. He was hard, his cock leaking, his orgasm a breath away with the pleasure of his Master's voice, his Master's praise washing over him. He rose, unsteady, to his feet and took a deep breath before turning to his victim.  
  
Trussed like a bird for a feast, his ankles high in the air, his legs spread and his arse exposed, the man was pure and unmarred. A flush of blood rose to redden his pale skin, heat lurking below the surface. Severus smiled.  
  
He stalked over to the man, his graceful stride made awkward by his erection. With a sharp nail, he traced an outline around the man's body, raising a single red welt.   
  
"Did you hear that?" he asked, murmuring into the man's ear like a lover. "You'll beg for me to kill you, in the end ... but first, first you'll beg for me to take you."  
  
With a whispered spell, Severus made his fingernail glow with fire, and he traced an open circle around the man's heart. The first mark to redden perfect pale skin, the first blisters, the first touch made the man writhe against his bonds. Severus traced his way down the man's breastbone, outlined each rib and seared his navel until he screamed.   
  
Severus looked up at his audience – the Dark Lord watching him with a smile, Lucius watching with desire shrouded in his eyes, the Death Eaters gathered in expectant clusters. The power of their attention, the need that they felt, the joy of pleasing his master, it all washed over Severus, and he bit his lip to taste the blood, copper-red and sweet.  
  
Another spell made the flame flare from his fingernail, arcing to cover the man's body. Screaming and struggling, the man twisted against the ropes that held him. The Dark Lord's laughter was a mirror to the crackling fire, sexy and deep – Severus shuddered, teetering on the brink of coming. He needed this, needed to burn with pleasure, needed his Master's approval.   
  
The fire died, and the man's skin was unscathed – white and perfect, smooth and hairless. Severus stroked him, running his fingers over the silky skin, playing with his balls and teasing his opening. "So smooth," he crooned into the man's ear, "so smooth and perfect. Tell me you want me, beg me to take you."  
  
Protests, stuttering against Severus's nerves like fire, crackling and percussive and harsh, denials and sobs – it was not enough to satisfy him. He bent down over the man, claiming him with tongue and teeth and lips. Severus bit the man's neck, marked his shoulders, sucked on his nipples, deep-throated his cock. He claimed him and marked him and left him hard and sobbing, the cock sliding out of Severus's mouth with a liquid pop.   
  
"Don't you want me?" he asked, rolling the man's balls in one hand. He thrust two fingers into the man's arse. "It will go easier for you if you beg prettily enough."  
  
Severus curled his fingers, brushing against the prostate, and the man broke. His babble flowed over Severus's nerves like rich honey, like sweet power, and he bit his lip. With his Master watching him, with his Master's pleasure floating at the edges of his mind, Severus opened his trousers and pulled out his cock.   
  
He thrust into the man, shuddering with the pleasure that his Master gave to him. He was on the brink of coming, on the brink of overwhelming pleasure, and he stopped.  
  
A spell ruined the man's perfect skin. His pale skin was crisscrossed with instant burns, charred and smoking, and Severus pulled out and waited. His cock was poised at the man's entrance, with everyone's eyes on him, with his Master's regard searing his nerves, his Master's pleasure burning through him, and Severus thrust in, thrust deeper.  
  
Spells crackled, curses burned, and Severus broke the Muggle – made him beg, made him cry, made him scream. He flayed every inch of skin, broke every bone, seared every nerve. The man begged for death as Severus came. Shaking with orgasm, Severus pulled out and cast the Killing Curse, and then he fell to his knees at the Dark Lord's feet.  
  
"My snake, my precious one, my dear Severus," the Dark Lord said, stroking his hair. "You have done well tonight."  
  
His prick limp and spent, Severus shuddered at his Master's praise, a second orgasm burning his nerves. He was thin and thready, like translucent fire, flickering on the edges of existence, overwhelmed by pleasure and overwhelmed by praise.   
  
"Bring me that Muggle's head," his Master ordered, and Severus hurried to obey.  
  
With a whisper of power, silk sliding across Severus's senses, bliss tantalizing his soul, Lord Voldemort took the head and burned it, banishing flesh and blood to leave only bone, shining and pale. Another flick of his wand, and the Dark Lord turned the skull into a mask, shining and silver and perfect.   
  
Severus's heart thudded in his chest. He took a deep breath, steadying himself, and pressed his forehead against the ground, daring to kiss his Master's robes.   
  
The Dark Lord, awesome and shining, radiant with glory and power, bent down to lift Severus up. "Severus, will you serve me?"  
  
"I live but to serve you, my Lord."  
  
"Serve me, then." Lord Voldemort aimed his wand at Severus, held it without faltering. With a flick and a smile, he cast the Cruciatus, and Severus writhed under it, begging for relief and begging for mercy. It was pain beyond pain, it was fire hotter than fire eating at his nerves, it was acid erasing his skin, and it was more than he could bear.  
  
"You will serve me in every way," his Master said, and Severus's nerves burned with the aftershock of the curse, burned with the darkness of his Master's betrayal. Pain, dark and merciless, complete and unrelenting, it washed over Severus and changed him, seared him beyond recognition and marked him more than any brand.  
  
A spell stripped Severus's arm, baring his pale skin to the watching crowd. Lord Voldemort gripped his wrist, raising it high, and pressed a kiss to his forearm.  
  
Hot pleasure washed through Severus, claiming him and changing him. Rivulets of fire washed through his brain as his Master's teeth broke his skin. Blood welled up from his veins, crimson and beautiful, to stain his Master's lips. The Dark Mark, inky-black and lovely, was etched into his skin, engraved there by his Master's kiss. Pain blossomed and arced through him, pain and pleasure twisting his nerves, and Severus's knees went limp.  
  
His Master held him up, supported him and cradled him in gentle arms. "My Severus, my faithful servant," he said, and he bent to press a bloody kiss to Severus's lips before handing him the silver mask. "Be welcomed by me and be welcome among your brethren."  
  
At his Master's words, the other Death Eaters approached, clustering around them. Severus took a deep breath and straightened, strong enough to leave the bliss of his Master's arms.   
  
Lucius welcomed him first, claiming his mouth for a rough, deep kiss, and Severus leaned into his embrace. He let Lucius soothe his nerves, let the caress of breath on his neck, the fingers fluttering on his shoulder be a buffer against the pain that lingered from the curse and the Marking. Lucius shielded him from the others, a possessive arm wrapped around Severus's shoulders, and the other Death Eaters offered quiet congratulations – only Bellatrix was bold enough to cross Lucius's displeasure, leaning forward to kiss Severus full on the lips.  
  
"Come," she said, her fingers warm on Severus's neck, her breath kissing his cheek, "let me lead you."  
  
Lucius released Severus, turning to sweep his wand in a broad gesture at the pile of corpses. With a whoosh, each corpse was scalped, the hair flying to land at Severus's feet in a tangle, and the bodies burst into flame and were consumed.  
  
"Come," Bellatrix said again, her fingers delicate around his wrist.   
  
Severus followed her, and Lucius followed them, the scalps levitated in a bloody mass that floated in their wake. Down into the depths of the Manor, into the stone dungeons they descended, and Bellatrix stopped in front of the first wooden door.  
  
Bella put her arms around Severus's neck and leaned in for a kiss, her breasts pressed against his chest. "Come to me after, if you like," she said, her teeth sharp on his earlobe. She drew blood and stepped away, licking her lips.  
  
Lucius claimed another kiss from Severus, pressed their bodies flush together, their groins grinding together, their lips pressed together. Familiar fire rekindled Severus's nerves and knit them back together where the pain had jolted them apart. "Come to me after, if you like," he said, and knocked on the door, releasing Severus.  
  
The door, ancient and heavy, with rusted hinges, did not creak. Severus stepped into the dim room and stumbled, his poise lost. He put his hand over the ache in his arm and closed his eyes, shaking.  
  
An old woman, spinning in the corner, cackled. "Bring those over here, dearie," she said.  
  
Severus blinked and obeyed, levitating the bloody scalps over to her. She cleansed them of flesh and blood without a word, her magic crackling through the air, and Severus shuddered under her gaze.   
  
"A good first kill?" she asked, her fingers busy at the spinning wheel. "How did it feel, to hear them beg for mercy, to feel their blood under your fingers, to feel their last heartbeat? How did it feel, to rape that man?"  
  
Bile rose in his throat, her words burning images into his brain, burning sensations onto his skin, and Severus lurched and vomited, falling to his knees on the stone floor. He had done all those things, he had taken joy in doing his Master's bidding, and he had –   
  
"Yes," she said. "Yes, you're the one. I've been waiting for you."  
  
He had been betrayed by his Master, forced to do unspeakable things and rewarded only with unspeakable pain. The air crackled around him, his vomit disappearing, the shorn hair being spun into fine thread. Auburn and blond and brown were subsumed into black, all of the thread as black as magic and shining like power, and the old woman was spinning fast, her fingers flying at the wheel.  
  
"They call me the Fate," she said. "They killed my sisters, and the people you killed tonight – they were sisters and brothers, mothers, fathers, children. You broke them for a whim and a folly, boy."  
  
She spun, the air crackling and pure around them. Severus was caught up in the vortex of her spell and he shuddered at the power of it.   
  
He shuddered, overwhelmed by the spell, and she reached out to touch his cheek. Her fingernail broke his skin, drawing blood. He bit his lip, and she laughed at him.  
  
"Not afraid of pain, are you?" she asked. "This is a spell that we're weaving here, and it won't do to be squeamish."  
  
She smeared the blood on her spindle, and her spell whirled around him, cleansing him and stripping him. Shivering in the dungeon, naked on the cold floor, Severus waited. He was caught and held in thrall by her power.  
  
"Wank," she told him, and he gaped at her.  
  
"Blood and semen and tears, that's what this spell needs," she said. She waved a bony finger at him, her fingernail a bloody crescent.  
  
The spell compelled him, magic swirling through the darkness and taking hold of him. Severus struggled to his knees, closing his eyes and wrapping his fingers around his limp cock. Power thrummed through the air, vibrating against his skin, warm and pleasant. His cock hardened under his touch, hot and velvet-smooth, and he took a deep breath, steadying himself against the need that flowed and overflowed through him.  
  
As fast as magic, she spun the hair into thread and plied it onto her loom. "Come for me," she said, and the power of her spell arced through Severus, setting his nerves on fire. He came, his semen spilling out onto his fingers, and he lifted his hand up to her.   
  
She took his come, her bloody fingernail scooping it up, and rubbed it into the fabric as she wove. It was stark and surreal and it was power and need, and Severus was caught up in the spell, caught up in the darkness and light that she wove together without effort.  
  
"Cry for me," she said. "Cry for those brothers and sisters that you killed today."  
  
The spell demanded his tears, the power thrumming through Severus and burning in his eyes. There was no choice but to cry, with the spell wrapped around him like a compulsion. He cried, and with her semen-stained and bloody finger, she gathered the tears from his cheeks.   
  
She cut the fabric, hemming it as the spell whirled to a completion. Light and dark shimmered around the cloak, melting into the cloth, the hot power of the spell slipping into the warp and weft, melding with the fabric. It was done.  
  
The old woman wrapped Severus in the cloak, covering his nakedness, wiping away the last of his tears. "The spell chose you, and someday you will understand that," she said. "Go now – not to that dark, mad woman or to that blond lover of yours. Go to the old man and tell him everything."  
  
Severus blinked at her, the spell falling away and leaving him slow and sleepy. "What?"  
  
"Go to the old man and tell him everything," she said again.  
  
The cloak was fine and warm, the material as soft as silk and heavy as velvet. Severus clutched at it, the reminder of his kills, of his pile of corpses, and he turned to look at the old woman. She sat in the corner, spinning and humming to herself – a wrinkled old woman, half-mad from loneliness and loss, a crazy dungeon spider. Severus wrapped the cloak around him, shrouded himself with the fine-spun hair, the dark velvet, and he lifted the cold silver mask to cover his face.   
  
\-------  
  
Severus was laid bare before Albus Dumbledore, laid bare and found wanting. He sat straight in his uncomfortable chair, his fingers clenched around the armrests, and he did not squirm as Dumbledore weighed his soul with a glance.   
  
"There is nothing that I can do for you," Dumbledore said.   
  
The cloak was a shield around Severus, soft and comforting – spawned of darkness, wrought with strange magic, it alone would be enough to make Dumbledore mistrust him, but it alone was enough to soothe him. Severus unclenched his hands from the chair, stroking the soft cloak. He pulled the fabric close around him. "Very well," he said, and rose to leave.  
  
There was no hope for redemption here – there was no hope for light to overwhelm the darkness of his Master's betrayal. There was nothing for Severus except darkness, and the simple comfort of his cloak.   
  
"Sit down, Severus," Dumbledore said.   
  
He was not Severus's Master – he had no right to command Severus's obedience, no power over him. The light that came from him, waves of searing magic that crashed against Severus and battered him to the core, was enough to drive him away. It was uncompromising and harsh, it heightened every shadow and imperfection in Severus's soul and in his past, and it was enough light to burn him into blindness.  
  
"Sit down," Dumbledore said again, with the force of his magic behind his words, and Severus obeyed.   
  
"It is not that I would not help you, if I could, it is that I cannot help you. Do you understand?"  
  
Another day, another office, another futile offer of sympathy and another refusal to act in Severus's behalf – it was always the same. Severus bit his tongue and nodded, staring down at the deep scars in the wooden table. White rings stained onto the dark wood, crooked gouges and a large, irregular burn – the table was scarred with its past, history etched into it that no spell could erase.  
  
"Persevere, Severus," Dumbledore said. "Do not give your soul over to the darkness, but persevere with hope for the light. There will come a time when I will have it in my power to help you. I swear it to you, I will save you if I can."  
  
Severus shook his head and stood, knocking over his chair when he moved back from the table. "With your leave, Headmaster," he said.  
  
He pulled the hood of the cloak up over his head, preparing to go out into the cold drizzle and stopping only when Dumbledore stood, reaching out to touch him for the first time.  
  
"Severus ..."   
  
Dumbledore's hand was wrinkled and warm with a frantic, living pulse fluttering against Severus's skin. He let his touch linger, his magic swirling around them, his light chasing away the darkness that clung to Severus. The jar of magic on magic, the burn of the light, the agony of a touch that did not belong to his Master – Severus broke away, clutching his hand.  
  
"You're much too thin, my boy. You haven't been taking proper care of yourself since you left school, and I see those shadows under your eyes. A good hot meal and a dose of Dreamless Sleep, I think. My brother will arrange everything for you ... let him take care of you, Severus."  
  
"Snapes do not take charity." Severus turned, letting his cloak billow around him and started for the door, but Dumbledore caught him by the elbow.  
  
"It's not charity. Think of it as ... an apology. It's some small, inadequate recompense for the harm that I have done to you, nothing more."  
  
The pull of the light was irresistible and draining. His senses overloaded and too weak to resist, Severus stumbled as Dumbledore pushed him to the bar. He was settled down in front of a plate of food and a mug of Butterbeer. "Give him as much as he wants, Aberforth, and a room for the night, if you will. I'll come to settle up the tab when I'm finished."  
  
Severus blinked as Dumbledore went back to their table, leaving him with the food and drink. It was charity – it was nothing more than a sop to his pride. It was nothing more than a salve for Dumbledore's conscience, a pretty gesture to outweigh the darkness he'd felt when he touched Severus. This was no haven, no redemption, no light.  
  
Twisting around to stare at Dumbledore, Severus saw him sitting at the table with gaudy, glittering Sibyll Trelawney. "I'm not certain that I can offer you the position, my dear," Dumbledore was saying. "I'm considering the usefulness of Divination in the overall curriculum at Hogwarts. It has long been a tradition, but ..."  
  
Severus's Master would not have faltered or placated his underlings. He would not have tolerated the simpering, frippery and falsehood, he would not have responded with an indulgent smile and gentle words.   
  
Nerves stinging with the remembered pain of the Cruciatus, with the remembered pain of his Master's betrayal, Severus reached for his Butterbeer and downed it in half-choking gulps.   
  
"You cannot think of sending the children out into the world, unprepared to face their future. How would they survive?"  
  
"Really, Sibyll, I don't think ..."  
  
She reached for her drink and then froze, rising from her chair. Her hands went to her throat, half-choking, and she stumbled away from the table, her gauzy scarves swirling around her.  
  
She spoke in a low, throaty voice, her eyes unfocussed and hands frozen on her neck. "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ..."   
  
Severus stumbled from his bar stool, jerky and clumsy, caught in the spell of her trance. He stood before Trelawney, forcing her hands from her throat. Her hands gripped his, her fingernails digging into his palms – the pain was nothing, with her vacant gaze boring into him.  
  
Dumbledore rose from his chair and gave a sharp nod to his brother, who grasped Severus by the shoulder and dragged him toward the door.   
  
Trelawney clutched at him for a moment before he was pulled away, and she stared at him with her eerie, empty eyes as he was hustled past her. "Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ..." she said.   
  
Her fingers grasped at the empty air in front of her. Her fingers had seared him with a hot brand – had gouged crescents into Severus's hands.  
  
With one last look behind him, twisting his neck until it ached, Severus was thrown out of the pub – he was sent sprawling in the mud, his beloved cloak soaked and dirty. He clutched at the darkness and took refuge in it, his only option.  
  
There was no light for him – there was darkness, and it was pushed aside by pain. Pain, searing through his protective cloak, sparking along each nerve, racing up his spine to gather like a blazing sun in his brain – it was like acid burning through his self-control, it was too much. Severus bit through his lip, gasping. "Master ... Master, please."  
  
"Crucio," the Dark Lord said again, and Severus's elbow banged against the floor as he writhed, a sharp brutal pain that overlaid the illusory agony burning his soul away. His self-control was worn away, instant by instant, and he begged for relief, for forgiveness, for anything.  
  
"Ah, my Severus," the Dark Lord said, lifting the curse. "My faithful Severus, it is good to see you again. What brings you here without my summons?"  
  
"My Lord, I ..." Severus swallowed, catching his breath. He used his sleeve to wipe spittle and blood from his lips, and smoothed down his robes as he moved to kneel before his Master. His Master, worshipped and exalted, sweet and dark and acid-sharp, his Master had betrayed him again.  
  
"My Lord, I come to you with news. I have overheard a prophecy, given by the great-granddaughter of Cassandra Trelawney. It is said that the gift of the Seer is in that family's blood, my Lord, and she had every aspect of a true trance when I observed her."  
  
"Diffindo." Severus's shoulder was sliced open, and he bit his tongue at the sudden pain.   
  
"Well? Continue, then. I do not have all day to waste," Lord Voldemort said.  
  
Taking a deep breath, bracing himself against the pain, Severus found his voice again. "My Lord, she said that _the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies._ "  
  
Repeating her words, he felt the shock of them shudder through him again, from his injured shoulder, through his chest and to his heart. A deep, eerie vibration lingered, and Severus rubbed his hands together, trying to erase the memory of Trelawney's touch.  
  
"Well? What is the rest of it?"  
  
Severus bowed his head, clamping his fingers around the hem of his cloak. "I do not know, my Lord. Albus Dumbledore interfered, and I was thrown out of the pub before she finished."  
  
Before he finished speaking, Severus writhed under his Master's Cruciatus, his head thudding against the floor, his arms and legs twitching and his pleas impossible to restrain. He squeezed his eyes shut, a sunburst of pain exploding in the darkness, and thrashed about, regaining enough presence of mind to hold the hem of his cloak clenched between his fingers – it was small comfort, it was dark comfort, but it was the only thing that grounded him in his pain. He begged for release, for mercy, for any end to the pain.   
  
At last, the agony ended. Lord Voldemort healed him with a flick of his wand, the gash in his shoulder sealed up and the blood gone in an instant, leaving no stain. His hands had not been marked with the blood of the innocents he had killed, his skin had not burned at Dumbledore's touch, his palms had not been permanently branded with the crescent gouges of Trelawney's fingernails, and the blood he shed in his Master's service vanished as well. Nothing was permanent except for the Mark on his arm and the marks of his Master's betrayal – the shuddering and twitching agony left in the wake of the Cruciatus.  
  
Pacing, his boots scuffling the earth, the Dark Lord paused to kick Severus as he passed him. His ribs aching, his lungs burning with the aftermath of the curse and with the kick, Severus drew a deep thready breath and coughed, spitting the taste of blood from his mouth.  
  
"I will not be defeated," his Master said, kicking Severus again. "A mere child, a babe in his mother's arms, enough to defeat me? Impossible.  
  
"I will kill them all ... come with me, Severus. We'll put them to death for daring to defy me. We'll smoother them in their cradles, we'll pierce them in their wombs, we'll curse them and ..."  
  
"My Lord ... Master," Severus said, crawling over to kiss the hem of Voldemort's robe and receiving a kick in the face for his pains.  
  
"You dare to interrupt me?"  
  
"My Lord, please. If you kill all of the children, you may very well kill some that could be won over to our side, with proper persuasion. There are those who may yet repent and see your glory, there are those that may become your servants in the future ..."  
  
"Faithful Severus, always thinking," the Dark Lord said. "Very well. Go, and seek out any children that fit this prophecy, any pregnant women who have defied me, any of Dumbledore's foolish lackeys. I will spare the rest, so long as they may prove useful, but that one ... I will kill."  
  
The tingle of dark magic ran over Severus's skin, washing away any hope of light. He bowed his head, pressing his forehead to the floor. "Master, I live to serve. I will do your bidding."  
  
Severus braced himself for the curse, but when it came, it tore him open again, flaring down each nerve with sharp, electric jolts of pain. It overloaded his system and pummeled his brain, arcing through him like lightning. He writhed on the floor until his Master Disapparated, ending the curse with an abrupt pop, and the emptiness was worse than the pain.  
  
His Master had promised to elevate them, his faithful servants, his chosen ones, his Death Eaters – he had promised to glorify them and reward them beyond all dreams. His promises had faded like blood in water, swirling away to a transparent nothing, and they were rewarded by his pain and his betrayal.   
  
The stains on Severus's hands were gone, and the blood on his shoulder had vanished. The stains were on his soul, and the weight of the innocent deaths was around his neck. There was no light, there was no forgiveness, there was nothing for Severus except the darkness and the sting of betrayal after betrayal, the Master he had loved turning a wand against him.   
  
The shaking of the Cruciatus was past when at last he rose, his knees trembling but strong enough to support his weight. The sting in his shoulder had faded, sharp pain dwindling to a remote ache. The earth was charred where his Master had stood – the aftermath of curses and power lingering there was enough to blacken nature.  
  
One life for many, one child offered up as sacrifice to appease his Master's murderous rage – Severus caught his breath, leaning against the shop window and trembling with the aftershocks of the Cruciatus. With sweet, pure air flooding his lungs, with sunlight on his skin instead of pain, Severus was making a spectacle of himself in Diagon Alley.   
  
Another day of evasions, another day of curses, another day of displeasing his Master – Severus shook as he pulled away from the wall, but he stood without support. His Master's rage grew, and it would be one sacrifice, one life to appease his rage.  
  
"Severus? Are you unwell?"  
  
He drew his cloak close, shrouding himself in the darkness he deserved, the darkness he craved – comfort close to his soul, warmth over his breastbone – and turned to loom over Lily Evans.  
  
She sparkled in the bright day, her belly round and her graceful arms bare, pale in the light. Her magic washed Severus in gentle, clean warmth. This was not light that blinded, but it was light that cleansed and forgave, light that comforted.  
  
Severus took a step away from her. "I am well, as you see, and in no need of your interference."  
  
One hand went to her stomach, cradling the rounded swell of her unborn child, and the other went to Severus's shoulder. "I'm glad you don't need any help, then, because I do. The – I find that I'm not able to do as much as I would like. Can you help me back to the Leaky Cauldron? I need to Floo home."  
  
"I've better things to do than pander to you and Potter's whelp."  
  
"Severus, please."  
  
He took her elbow and set off down the street, pulling her behind him. Protestations of weakness set aside, she followed him, matching his pace. Her small feet scuffled the dust on the road as she took rapid, lurching steps, and he stopped only when they were in front of the pub.  
  
"Sit and have tea with me?" she asked, trying to pull Severus through the door.   
  
"No." He wrenched his cloak from her grasp – her fingers pale against the black fabric, her light enough to bleach his darkness.   
  
"Please, Severus. I'm too dizzy to take the Floo. Won't you sit with me for awhile at least?"  
  
He let her pull him to a chair and he sat, refusing to pull out her chair, refusing her offer of tea. Severus folded his arms across his chest and watched her twist her hair in her fingers. "Do not torment yourself, and do not inflict your pithy Gryffindor sentiments on me," he said. "There is nothing that you have to say to me."  
  
"Severus ... it didn't have to be this way." She was radiant with James Potter's child, his friend bearing his enemy's son. She pushed her hair away from his face, unveiling her crooked smile. "Can't you –"  
  
"No. If you have nothing more to say to me, then I'll leave you now. I imagine that you're recovered enough to use the Floo."  
  
He scraped his chair against the floor as he pushed it back, the screech of wood against wood running through the pub and stilling the babble of conversations. "Sit with me, Severus," she said.   
  
She caught him with a wave of magic, a net that slipped over him and pushed him back into the chair. Her magic was different, deeper, richer – her signature was overlaid with that of her unborn child, their magic braided together like a thick rope.   
  
Severus closed his fingers into fists, shoving his trembling hands under the table. There were deep scars in the wood, there were crescents being gouged out of his palms, and there was a shaking certainty that crept up on him. "When are you expecting Potter's whelp to be born?"  
  
She gave him a rainbow smile, her mouth quirked with the colors that poured from her aura at the question. "The end of July, and don't call him 'Potter's whelp,' he's my son just as much as he is James's. We've got everything ready – the nursery, the baby clothes, everything. It's fantastic, Severus."  
  
Her elbows pressed against the edge of the table as she leaned toward him, a red crease imprinted into her flesh. "I hope that you'll come to visit me after little Harry is born," she said. "Don't let James keep you away."  
  
Severus looked away from her. "I'll see what I can do."  
  
Darkness called to him, feeding the thud of his heart and the shaking of his nerves. His Master, wrapped in majesty and terrible power, his Master calling wrath down upon him, his Master slaughtering the innocents by the thousands, all of the infants still and mangled at his feet ... Severus rose, slipping through the strands of Lily's impromptu spell. He knocked his chair over as he fled, and did not look back to see her again.


	2. Chapter 2

Lord Voldemort was dead. Severus curled his arm around his knees, pulling them up to his chest. The cold of the prison seeped through his robes and through his skin, the need of the Dementors – an insatiable hunger, a creeping gnawing lust for warmth and happiness – seeped through to his bones. His Master, his mainstay and defender and leader and love, was dead. His Master had betrayed him and tarnished him and died, and there were no happy thoughts left to be taken from him.  
  
The cell door rattled and swung open, rusty iron clanking. Severus closed his eyes, drawing his cloak up to cover his face, and took deep gasping breaths through his nose. The filtered air was warm and stale, with a faint charred tang – the smell of burning hair, a hint of its origin. When the guard kicked him, a heavy boot thudding into his ribs, Severus's fingers clenched into fists. His fingernails dug into his palms, sharp crescents of pain that grounded him.   
  
He was dragged down the corridor, stumbling over his own feet and the sweeping, rustling robes of the Dementors. They clustered around him, grasping and greedy, reaching for him. With half-hearted silver sparks, the guard shooed them away and ushered Severus through the door, helping his progress with a solid kick.   
  
Severus fell to his knees, skidding on the floor. Blinking, trembling, his hands clenched into fists, he pressed his forehead to the floor, giving his warmth up to the cold stone.   
  
Hands grasped his shoulders and pulled him up from the floor. With a gentle finger, Dumbledore tilted Severus's face up. "Never abase yourself before me."  
  
Severus's Master was dead – he had no Master. He let Albus Dumbledore guide him, he submitted to the searing, blazing light. Wrapped in his dark cloak, his fading shield, Severus bowed his head.  
  
"How do you measure the weight of a life?"  
  
He blinked away the gray Dementor dreams, the shrouds that clung to his thoughts like rainbow-black oil. "I don't know."  
  
"What about a soul, then? How can you measure a soul?"  
  
Squeezing his eyes shut and seeing the last flare of his Master's soul, the last bright kiss of darkness on his Mark, the agony-bright nimbus of betrayal, Severus said, "I do not deal in riddles. If you have no further use for ..."  
  
"Oh, but I do have a use for you," Dumbledore said, covering Severus's hands with his own.  
  
Pulse fluttering, the rush of blood from heart to fingertips left Severus dizzy. Light battered against his shield of darkness, and warm wrinkled hands traced the lines of his palm, the veins in his wrist, the Mark on his arm.   
  
"I have an offer to make you now, one that I could not make before."  
  
Severus pulled his hands back, folding them in his lap. Pale and gaunt against his dark cloak, they were sign and symbol of his sins, his failure. Light swallowed up by darkness, Severus swallowed up by darkness, this man had rejected him before. "I have –"  
  
"I have arranged for your parole, and you shall have it, with your freedom too, if you will only swear an oath with me. I have need of you, Severus."  
  
Light flickered in the gloom, sputtering from the torches and banishing the shadows that were gathering. The one window gave a glimpse of the setting sun, the fire spreading across the still water. Calm and waiting, patient and dreadful with a nimbus of flaring power, Dumbledore sat and watched him. Severus blinked, his eyes unused to the brightness after months in the close-knit gloom of his cell. "What would you have of me, then?"  
  
Dumbledore reached over and grasped Severus's shoulders, his hands firm and steady. "I need you to destroy the remains of Voldemort's soul."  
  
His Master – past devotion, past betrayal, past horror, Severus shuddered and shook his head. "No."  
  
"You have killed before, Severus – no, I know that you have. You've felt the last moments of a dying soul, that last grasping moment before they are rent from flesh and blood and freed to ascend to peace beyond pain. How is it then, for a soul to be trapped in an insufferable limbo, cursed with a half-existence and a heavy burden of agony? I know how your Master betrayed you, how he used you and abused you, but surely you will not condemn him to that fate. Free him, Severus, and redeem yourself."  
  
His Master, aglow with power and dark with folly, haloed with the green of the Killing Curse – his Master, wand pointed at Severus with a curse on his lips – his Master, with a proud smile for Severus who stood ringed with lifeless, faceless bodies – his Master had betrayed him.   
  
His Master was dead. Lord Voldemort's soul remained to be destroyed.  
  
Severus swallowed and nodded, and Dumbledore reached for him, taking his hand. "Will you swear a Vow with me then?"  
  
When Severus nodded, his throat closed and tight, a phoenix appeared midair, bright enough to sear his vision. With a flutter of flame-bright wings, it swooped from corner to corner, chasing the shadows from the ceiling and driving the Dementors away from the periphery where they lurked.   
  
"This is Fawkes," Dumbledore said. "He'll serve as our witness and binder – I trust no one else with the task."  
  
The phoenix landed on Dumbledore's shoulder with a croon and a bobble, dipping its head to stare at Severus. At its gaze, darkness was pierced and shed, falling away from Severus like heavy water, like cold shackles.   
  
Dumbledore laid his hand flat against Severus's, their wrists touching. A flurry of heartbeats, a whisper of wrinkles against Severus's smooth skin, and the contact was sealed by the phoenix's song, a red jet of light wrapping itself around their hands.   
  
"Do you, Severus, swear to do everything in your power to find the Horcruxes made by Voldemort and deliver them to me?"  
  
"I so swear."   
  
Another jet of fire burst from the phoenix's mouth, flowing over them with its song and wrapping around their wrists. Bright and burning, it braided itself with the first strand, the two strands twisting around together into eternity.  
  
"Do you, Severus, swear to do everything in your power to destroy the remnants of Voldemort's soul?"  
  
"I so swear."  
  
Another jet of fire, brighter than the first, bound Severus to Dumbledore. The phoenix song was louder, almost unbearable, swelling around them and sinking into them. It permeated Severus from fingernails to bones, resonating through his marrow and cleansing him.   
  
"Do you, Severus, swear to pursue this as your highest priority, forsaking all other quests and doing nothing to endanger your purpose?"  
  
"I so swear."  
  
The fourth jet of light burned Severus, braiding itself around the other three and sinking into his skin. He closed his eyes, seeing crimson through the dark – he was left blinded and trembling, washed away by the light.  
  
The Vow sank into him, changing him with its weight, with its light, and Severus staggered when Dumbledore released his hand. Through tight lungs, he took a deep breath, blinking the blindness from his eyes, and pulled his cloak tight around him, needing the comfort. At length, Severus looked up to see Dumbledore waiting, and he stood, ready to leave the gray prison.  
  
The Vow bound him, a warm weight around his shoulders, a lover's clasp around his neck. It murmured to him, filling his empty nights with song and strength, the memory of Dumbledore's touch covering and blocking the memories of Voldemort.   
  
Darkness called to darkness, and Severus set aside the quiet shimmering comfort of the Vow. The Mark on his arm was dark enough to feel the pull of Voldemort's shattered soul, his Master calling to him still. With the light of the Vow dimmed in the corner of his mind, shielded and safe, Severus learned to feel the pull of darkness, the pull of the Horcruxes. It was a faint pressure on his forearm, lighter than the kiss of the breeze, a sweet seductive pull.   
  
Severus held his shields tight and followed it, roamed from Hogwarts to Diagon Alley and back, trying to trace the dark fragments. It was a faint and faltering pull, the Mark leading him to his fellow Death Eaters or to tarnished, discarded Dark artifacts. He haunted Knockturn Alley, he sought out every trace and whisper of darkness, and still his search was fruitless.  
  
Winter came and passed, the ground thawing under the relentless watery sunlight as a sleeper, waking from a dream. Severus followed the pull of the dark magic on his Mark, followed his faltering compass and Albus's unwavering letters. The first blooms fell from the trees in an early summer storm, and he was called away from his search.  
  
The vellum crinkled under his fingers as he traced the fine letters. An invitation to Malfoy Manor for a toddler's birthday party – nothing could be more tedious or unwanted. Deceiving Lucius and all of the other Death Eaters, coddling an irksome brat with presents and praise, it only took him from his search, from his Vow.   
  
Severus scowled at the invitation and, feeling the faintest nudge from his Mark, a hint of darkness enough to tantalize and burn his nerves, he scrawled an affirmative reply onto the back of the parchment. He tied the scroll to the foreleg of the waiting owl and wrapped his cloak around himself.   
  
Malfoy Manor was gay and welcoming, the lawn overflowing with chatting women in low-cut silk dresses and men in formal robes, the grounds awash with blossoms in china vases. Severus nodded to his acquaintances with his lips set in his most foreboding scowl, and made his way up the steps to the front door. Draco, the very spit and image of Lucius from his smooth hair to his pout, was the first to accost him. With sticky hands, Draco patted down Severus's pockets and demanded a present.   
  
"Draco, no. What have I told you?"   
  
Narcissa scooped the boy up, resting him on her hip and cleaning his hands and face with a gentle spell before tickling him under the chin and sending him off with an admonishment to behave. She turned to Severus and stared at him, something unreadable in her pale eyes, and then she nodded at last, gesturing him toward the study before she turned away.  
  
Severus sighed and cleaned the sticky mess from his trousers. He set his gift beneath a vase of flawless lilies on the entrance table. Bright and gaudy, wrapping paper sparkling with spells and humming with jaunty songs, the gifts took up most of the space on the table, with Narcissa's careful flower arrangements shoved to the back.  
  
Lucius was in the study, a quiet oasis after all of the noise and color of the party. Severus let the door shut behind him without a noise and strode up to the window where Lucius watched the party.   
  
"I knew that you would come."  
  
"I couldn't stay away – even knowing that I'd be subjected to your wife's fiercest glares," Severus said. He reached out to Lucius, but let his hands drop before touching him. There was silence between them, full with the sounds of breath and heartbeat, full with the heat of their bodies.   
  
"It was enough to keep you away this past half-year and more," Lucius said. "Unless there was another reason for your absence?"  
  
Severus reached for him then, his fingers brushing Lucius's sleeve. The silk of the robe was cool under his fingers. "Dumbledore has been watching me. He doesn't trust me still, in spite of the pretty story about repentance that I fed to him. I didn't dare come to you before now, love."  
  
Lucius whirled away from the window, and Severus followed him to the door. Arms around shoulders, hips thrusting together, heartbeats thudding a thready, unsteady rhythm together, Lucius caught Severus and pressed him against the door for a long kiss. "I must greet my other guests now, Severus. We'll talk more of this afterwards."  
  
Severus submitted to the kiss, opening his mouth for Lucius, but all the while he kept his mind apart and distant, with the bright comfort of the Vow shielded. Like a faithful shadow, he followed Lucius out onto the lawn, out to the mindless small-talk of the gauzy, gaudy butterflies there. Poisonous to the unwary predator, fluttering with their own busy, dizzy lives and colors, all of the guests were useless to Severus.   
  
Narcissa watched him, Draco squirming in her arms, with her mouth set in a hard, unyielding line. There was nothing of useless gauze or butterfly flutter about her, nothing but the hard ache of betrayal and the harder steel of purpose. She'd never spoken about her husband's betrayal, never understood it – Narcissa was, steel and darkness aside, a woman of silk and gauze, an ice lady without fire to burn or passion to sizzle, without any match for Lucius's passion. She took her place at her husband's side, linking her arm with his and smiling at their guests.   
  
Draco took the opportunity to break free from her grasp, and he ran to accost Severus again. "Present," he demanded with a lisp, tugging on Severus's trouser leg. "Birthday present."  
  
Severus shook him away and retreated to the house, giving Lucius a meaningful look and ignoring Narcissa's glare. After the sun and the chatter, the cool marble staircase was a relief to his nerves and his headache. Letting a house elf fetch him tea, Severus escaped the perfumed bower of the entrance hall with its gaudy flowers and trinkets, heading up the stairs and to the library.  
  
He felt it then, the prickle of darkness against his Mark that was strong enough to overwhelm the background buzz of darkness that pervaded Lucius's Manor, strong enough to overwhelm the spikes of darkness that he'd felt from the Marks of the other Death Eaters at the party. Severus clamped his fingers around his arm, shielding the Vow and shielding the light that hovered just out of his reach.   
  
It was here – part of his Master's soul was here, part of the lingering darkness. The wreck he had made of his soul, a fragment of it was here.   
  
There was nothing here – no soul, no disloyalty, no sin. Severus had sinned, had tasted the black ashes of betrayal and the bloody liquor of power, all at his Master's hands. It was nothing to him now, nothing but the comfort of the Vow and the purging of his soul.  
  
It was a kindness to end Voldemort's tortured half-existence, a kindness to undo the twisted mockery he had made of his soul. Severus took a deep breath, shutting the images out of his mind – the letters with Albus's careful penmanship and clear logic, the tang of the lemon sherbet on his tongue, the over-sweetened tea and crumbling biscuits that they'd shared in that stark antechamber in Azkaban prison. He hid the light and drew the darkness around himself.  
  
The library was rich with the smell of leather and parchment, sun-warmed ink and sun-warmed dust, with none of the excessive perfumed frippery of the downstairs hall. The sunlight, the warm comfort of leather and parchment, the sweet hum of the forbidden books, none of it was enough to overwhelm the taint spreading from a fragmented soul. Severus took a deep breath and stalked down the aisles. He put a hand out to trail it along the shelves, careful not to touch the books.   
  
Darkness vibrated along his spine, the residual magic of Lucius's dark books, the hints and shudders of old, half-forgotten curses. Through it all, the darkness of his Master's soul was a twisted, ringing note, a deep disturbance in the quiet room.   
  
Severus reached the end of the aisle and turned, his Mark pulling him to the left. He rubbed his forearm, biting his lip. He had waited for this moment, had searched and struggled and in the end, he had overcome the last of his qualms, setting his will to his task and making himself ready.   
  
The library door opened with a rush and Severus stopped, turning to face Lucius as though he had not been startled. He took a deep breath, slowing his heartbeat and steadying his shaking fingers.   
  
He smiled, licking his lower lip to soothe it, where he had bitten too hard. "Couldn't wait, could you, Lucius? I'm so glad."  
  
Severus unfastened his cloak, dropping it onto the nearest overstuffed armchair. Lucius watched him, gray eyes gleaming, as Severus stalked over to him and claimed his mouth for a kiss. It burned, it seared every nerve and tickled at the hidden Vow, the hidden light searing his mind.  
  
"I've missed you, wanted you, needed you for so long." Severus bit Lucius's earlobe, breathing in his ear and pressing hard against him.   
  
He was embraced, Lucius's fingers rough on his shoulders, claiming him. He was marked and possessed, he was bread and water to a starving man. "Severus," Lucius said, and the ache in his voice and embrace was immeasurable.  
  
"Please," Severus said, reaching to bridge the distance between them. His pulse thrummed in his throat, fast and fluttering, and his chest hurt. He was so close to it, so close to the darkness that had been his Master's soul, so close – Severus closed his eyes and submitted himself to Lucius.  
  
His Dark Mark vibrated with the proximity of the Horcrux and the nearness of Lucius's own Mark. Severus closed his mind to it, ignoring everything except for Lucius's touch.  
  
Fingers unbuttoned his robes, teased his skin, fluttering along the pulse of blood through Severus's veins to curl around his cock. Lucius bent Severus over the large library table, pressing his face into the polished wood. He yanked on Severus's hair, pulling his head back to hiss in his ear. "You belong to me. You belong with me, writhing underneath me, filled with my come and crying my name."  
  
He was fire, he was air, he possessed Severus and reveled in it. Severus jerked under his fingers, arched up into his touch, and met him, plea for plea.  
  
Lucius bit his neck, leaving dark bruises from his earlobe down to his collarbone. "No doddering old fool is going to keep you away from me. No amount of time or distance is going to make you forget that you belong to me, that you are mine, you understand?"  
  
Pulling Severus's pants down, Lucius spread his legs and thrust two fingers inside him with a murmured lubrication spell. Twist and burn and stretch, it was the same fire between them as though they'd never parted, as though a Vow did not weigh down Severus's shoulders and lighten his Dark Mark. Lucius's touch set him on fire, electrified his nerves, claimed him and satisfied him.   
  
Caught up in the flood of darkness that filled the room, his nerves sizzling with need and with anticipation for the end of his task, pinned to the table by Lucius's weight, Severus only shook. He whimpered as Lucius finger-fucked him, whimpered at the burn of the fingers inside him.   
  
"Yours, Lucius, only yours," he managed to say. "Take me, make me yours."  
  
He was lost in the current of magic and the burn of sex. Eyes closed, fingers gripped around the heavy book lying on the table, his body shook with the effort not to squirm or struggle as Lucius bit him and owned him and fucked him.   
  
His fingers touched the book, and an arc of magic burned through him, from his fingertips through his Mark to his heart, darkness sizzling through him. It was his Master's Horcrux, it was pain to send him into an ecstasy of pleasure, and it was his undoing. He clutched the book and clenched his muscles around Lucius, begging for release.  
  
The tang of blood hung rich and dark in the air as Lucius's teeth broke his skin, and Severus felt the blood trickle down between his shoulder blades. He was claimed, he was alive, he was freed. The blood itched, and the brush of Lucius's long hair against his shoulders itched, and Severus gritted his teeth together, needing more.  
  
The Dark Mark on his forearm flared as Lucius came inside him, biting his other shoulder. The blood began to trickle in an unsteady, half-symmetrical line, and Severus rutted against the table until he came, clenching his muscles and arching his back.  
  
"Mine," Lucius said, with a quick kiss. His lips were damp and soft, and his warm breath raised gooseflesh on the back of Severus's neck. "Mine."  
  
With a whisper, he healed the marks on Severus's back. He kissed the healed skin, whispering "mine" again, and he rubbed his hands in soothing circles on Severus's back, bringing him down from the pinnacle.  
  
He pulled out of Severus, standing and straightening his robes. He brushed back a lock of hair, as perfect and unruffled as ever. "I must get back to the party. Narcissa is no doubt wondering where I am."  
  
"Somehow, I think she knows," Severus said. Hiding a wince, he pulled up his pants and began to do up his buttons. The ache of the Dark Mark was less, with Lucius standing by the door, but the thrum of the darkness, the pull of the shattered soul was just as strong.  
  
"Severus, you never change, do you? Are you coming?"  
  
Lucius held the door open, his fingers twitching and his mouth set in a hard impatient line, but Severus shook his head. "I must get back to Hogwarts, the old fool will be suspicious as it is."  
  
"Well, then. Do not stay away for so long again."  
  
Severus stopped him at the door, his hand hovering an inch away from Lucius's skin, not daring to touch him. "Lucius –"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"May I – could I perhaps borrow a few books from your library while I am here? It would give me the perfect excuse to return here sooner, and in fact, I have been looking for a few fourteenth century treatises –"  
  
"You really never change, do you? Take whatever you like," Lucius said. He clapped a hand on Severus's shoulder and leaned over to kiss him on the temple, his lips lingering there for a second. "Come back soon, my Severus."  
  
\-------  
  
When Severus returned to Hogwarts, he let slip the cloak of darkness that kept his Vow safe and secret in his mind. It burned, like heart light, like hearth warmth, and it was enough to keep the tarnished and twisted darkness of the Horcruxes at bay. He carried them in a warded bag, and paid no heed to the agonizing rustle of soul shards, no heed to the clanking metal or the searing heat or the piercing pain. There was nothing left for his Master but empty tricks, and Severus was not easily fooled. Darkness had swept through his soul once, but it had no dulled his mind or sapped his magic.  
  
Dark and twisted, his Master had been mad to fragment his soul. There was nothing to guard the fragments, only petty and inconsequential traps ringed around the relics – child's play and nothing more. With the diary, the first Horcrux he found, to heighten the pull of the darkness and guide him, Severus found the others. He'd scoured all the country, hunting through town and countryside, following the pull of the darkness and refusing to succumb to it.   
  
Hogwarts was a haven, its wrought iron gates opening for him without hesitation. There was nothing here of the madness that Voldemort had wrought, nothing of the betrayal and pain that he had given Severus. There was light here, light here for him with his task completed, and as Severus walked up to the castle along the paths that he had known, the burden in his hand was enough to lighten his journey.  
  
The gargoyles moved aside for him without waiting for a password, and Severus nodded at them as he went up the stairs. The Vow was thrumming through its veins, the comforting weight of it in his mind still solid and steady. Severus took a deep breath and stepped through the door into Albus's office.  
  
Fawkes fluffed his feathers with a deep-throated croon, rustling his wings and peering at Severus. The pull of the Vow came to a crescendo in his veins, pulling at him until he set the bag of Horcruxes on Albus's desk, and Severus took a deep breath, stepping away from the darkness that still seeped out of the warded bag.  
  
"Severus, you've returned at last," Albus said, and he made Severus welcome, pouring tea and offering scones and biscuits and sherbet lemons. He fussed and fluttered over Severus without a single look at the bag, until Severus thrust the teapot away, slopping liquid all over the desk, and scowled.  
  
"What are you going to do with them?" he asked.   
  
"Of course they will be disposed of properly," Albus says. "There's a lengthy ritual, precautions to take, wards to think of ... they will be safe until then, never fear. There's no chance of anything happening with Fawkes here to guard over them."  
  
Severus nodded and set his teacup on the desk. "Then, if you have no further need of me, I will ..."  
  
"No further need of you? Don't be absurd, Severus, how can you think such a thing?"  
  
A look and a gesture at the bag was enough to convey his meaning to Albus, and Severus shrugged and stood to leave.  
  
Albus caught him half-way out of his chair, pressing another cup of tea into his hands. "You can't know how relieved I am to see you return here now, Severus. I am in need of a new Potions Professor."  
  
"Slughorn ..."  
  
"Is on the verge of retiring, and not the professor that I want here at this delicate time," Albus said with a nod toward the Horcruxes. "There's a potion that we'll need to destroy these, it's quite difficult from what I understand of it. I couldn't trust anyone else, Severus."  
  
Severus closed his eyes. "I will brew the potion for you."  
  
"Excellent." Albus Summoned a book from his shelves, and it smacked into his hand, the noise resounding through the room. He stroked the spine of the book and passed it to Severus.  
  
"It's open to the correct page – this is the potion that you'll need to brew. It's quite complex, as you can see, but I imagine you'll be able to obtain most of the ingredients without too much trouble."  
  
Doxy brains, dragon liver, fabric from a Dementor's cloak, all foul ingredients suited to this foul purpose – Severus turned the page to read the ritual. "Immerse the Horcrux in the potion during the dark of the moon, wash it in the blood of a unicorn foal, and ... you can't mean to perform this ritual."  
  
Severus had sacrificed a child, he had killed the innocent, he had darkened his soul beyond recognition – and this, his redemption, sickened him. Dumbledore shone with light, bright enough to light the desert and strong enough to make darkness flee, but this was beyond darkness.   
  
With a green flare, sparks popping from the fireplace, Minerva McGonagall tumbled out of the Floo. She shook the soot from her robes and twisted her hair back up into a bun. "Albus, he's off the list."  
  
She stopped when she saw Severus, giving him a piercing look over her glasses. "Mr. Snape, how good of you to return to Hogwarts for a visit. It's been quite a while since you were here last."  
  
"Professor McGonagall."   
  
She frowned and turned to Albus. "Headmaster, I must speak with you – it's a matter of some urgency."  
  
Poised and calm, Albus slipped the bag of Horcruxes under his desk, his motions so smooth that McGonagall overlooked them or dismissed them as unimportant. "Severus may hear anything that you have to say, Minerva – I suspect that he'll become intimately involved with the situation. I've offered him a space on our faculty for next year, as Slughorn's replacement."  
  
McGonagall accepted the cup of tea and the lemon sherbet, sitting in the chair next to Severus. Spine straight, fingers twitching, she bit her lip before speaking. "Albus, are you certain that it's entirely wise to –"  
  
"Quite certain," he said. "Severus has my complete trust. You may speak freely in front of him."  
  
She hesitated, but did not contradict him. "Harry Potter's name has been crossed off the list, Headmaster. He must have expressed his intention to attend another school, but he hasn't received any of his letters."  
  
Leaning forward, McGonagall rested her clasped hands on the desk. They brushed against a silver whirligig and set it to flight – it buzzed around the room and came to rest next to Fawkes, still vibrating.   
  
"You know what sort of people they were when you left him there, Albus. You don't know what they've done to him – convinced him that magic doesn't exist, persuaded him to reject his parents and the world he belongs to, separated him from everything that should be his birthright."  
  
"You don't know what they've done to him either," Severus said. Darkness swirled in him at the mention of his enemy's son, the babe he had condemned, the fate he could have averted. "Raised him in the lap of luxury and sent him off to Eton, no doubt thinking that he's better than the rest of us."  
  
"They're not allowing him his letters, Snape. He's not being allowed to make the choice."  
  
"He has made the choice, Minerva – it may not have been an informed choice, but Harry has chosen not to attend Hogwarts, and we must respect that," Albus said.  
  
McGonagall spluttered, and Severus smirked, Albus waving his hands to clear the air between them and insisting on another round of tea and sweets. "There is nothing that I can do, Minerva ... I can't interfere with Harry's decision, but I will see to it that Severus and I pay the boy a visit before term starts."  
  
She was placated and ushered out the door, with Severus's mouth still stinging with the lemon sherbets that had been forced on him and his throat still tight with remarks he had repressed.  
  
"What do you mean, a visit before term starts?" Severus asked Albus after the sparks from Minerva's departure had subsided, sputtering out to nothing on the hearth.  
  
"We'll need Harry's help to destroy the Horcruxes, of course."  
  
Darkness swirled around the bag hidden under Dumbledore's desk, the swirls and shrieks of his Master's fragmented soul clamoring in his ears, adding soot-black stains to his blackened soul. Severus had done this, had caused it – from the damnation of the boy to the destruction of his soul, Severus had done it all.  
  
"No," he said, setting his will against Dumbledore's. "He's only a boy, an innocent boy raised by Muggles. You can't taint his soul with this kind of dark magic."  
  
"It must be done, Severus. Harry is the only one who can destroy Voldemort – it's been prophesied, as you well know."  
  
"Prophecy – a load of arrant nonsense that Trelawney spouted to impress her potential employer, you mean. You can't base the corruption of an innocent on that vague moon-mist."  
  
Dumbledore cast a ward on his desk, setting the bag of Horcruxes in a safe circle. Contained by the ward, the darkness seethed, and Severus took a deep breath. The pull of the soul-shards was lessened, the twisting agony of the darkness was muted, and he rubbed his forearm to soothe away the last of the pain.  
  
"No one other than Harry can do this – he's fated to destroy Voldemort. The ritual won't be effective if anyone else performs it."  
  
"The world won't be any better off if you make Harry Potter into a Dark Lord in order to dispose of Lord Voldemort. You can't corrupt him like this, Headmaster. Not even Potter's wretched offspring deserves such a fate."  
  
"I do what I must, and nothing more." Fawkes cooed, a high and fluttering note that echoed in the room, and Albus reached over and took the book from Severus's hands, closing it and sending it back to its place on the shelf.  
  
"You don't know that you must do this. The Prophecy didn't say that Harry Potter would destroy Lord Voldemort before his eleventh birthday using a spell found on page ninety-three of _Soul Magicks_. You don't know that this is fated, and if you force the issue ... if you taint Potter now ..."  
  
Dumbledore shook his head, the wrinkles in his face deepening. "Severus, he must be the one to kill the Dark Lord. There's no other option."  
  
"That is not the only option, Albus. Can't you see that?"  
  
Severus took a deep breath, setting his teacup on the desk with a clatter that rang out like a bell in the silence. Darkness swirled through him, drawn to the fragments of his Master's soul, and the light that shone from Albus and his phoenix was enough to blind him.   
  
"I've done enough in my life," Severus said. "If you intend to use an innocent boy in this ritual, then you'll do so without my help. Find someone else to brew the potion for you."  
  
"Why are you so concerned about him? He's James Potter's son, and more of a pampered celebrity than his father ever was ... likely to have the same faults, magnified ten-fold. He can't even be bothered to leave his pampered lifestyle to come to learn at Hogwarts – likely, he doesn't lift a finger to help himself, doesn't turn a page in a book. All of his celebrity, his family fortune, all of it will have gone to his head. Why exert yourself to defend a boy like that?"  
  
Dumbledore knew Severus's weaknesses, homing in on them like a bee drawn to a flower. Severus folded his arms across his chest, grinding his teeth until his jaw popped. "Would you have his faults be magnified a hundred-fold? Would you have him be the next Tom Riddle, more powerful and more dreadful? Would you condemn him, without allowing him to make his own choice?"  
  
"Let him make a choice, then," Albus said. "We'll go to him in Surrey and ask him if he will help us."  
  
"After abandoning him to be raised in the Muggle world, can you imagine that he has enough understanding to make that choice?"  
  
"Severus, the Prophecy ..."  
  
"Was made by Sibyll bloody Trelawney. Don't tell me that you put any stock into it."  
  
Severus rose when Albus opened his mouth to speak. Striding over to the door, he said, "On your own conscience be it, if you decide to do this. I'll have no part in it."  
  
Dumbledore closed the door with a wave of his hand. "Wait ... Severus, does the boy mean that much to you?"  
  
Severus reached for the doorknob and was shocked by Albus's wards – the sting of electricity ran through his fingers and up to his heart, an unpleasant buzz through his veins. He let his hand fall and turned to glare at Albus. "You know that he does."  
  
Rubbing his fingers together, Severus banished the rest of the sting from the spell. "Having condemned him once, how can I do it again?"  
  
"Even if it means condemning the rest of the world to eternal damnation under Voldemort's reign?"   
  
Albus's mouth was a taut line, his wrinkles drawn together into deep furrows. Like a portrait faded with age and dust, the light that shone from Albus was muted and dull. There was no taint of darkness to it, there was nothing but his pure intentions, but there was a filter of uncertainty that left his light diffuse and blurred.  
  
"You don't know that it will," Severus said. "You don't know that at all."  
  
Severus pointed his wand at his left forearm, and without a word, he rent the sleeve, the fabric falling away to expose his Mark. "Darkness touched me once, and look at what I have become. Is this the fate you would choose for the boy?"  
  
Dumbledore pointed his wand at Severus – a fierce look, a gleam in those impossibly blue eyes, and Severus was afraid. He straightened his back, holding his head high and looking Albus in the eye.  
  
Warmth tickled his skin as Albus mended his sleeve – a breath of magic, a breath of light, and more. "You'll complete the ritual with me, if the boy is not involved?"  
  
Darkness piled upon his soul, sin after sin etched in innocent blood – it was to protect the Potter boy. Severus nodded once, and Albus continued. "And you'll teach Potions at Hogwarts, won't you? I'll have need of you here."  
  
Hogwarts – home and haven, penance and prison – this was the price he had to pay. Severus nodded again, his hair falling forward in jerky waves to mask his face – his future for the boy, his freedom to spare the boy he had condemned.   
  
\-------  
  
Severus slammed the door shut, turning to face the cowering class. Seven years of teaching, and he'd made no impression on impressionable minds, inculcated no knowledge and made no strides in teaching the brats the importance of proper safety measures. There was no redemption in teaching, no salvation to be found in the sheer willpower that it took to refrain from strangling the chattering, squirming wretches.   
  
"If I ever see a repeat of today's incident again, you will rue it until the day you leave school with failing marks and no employment prospects whatsoever," Severus said as the bell rang. "Three feet on the explosion, its causes and the proper brewing of today's potion, due next week. Class dismissed."  
  
The students filed out of the classroom like obedient marionettes, as dull and obedient as unpainted wooden faces. Draco lingered behind the rest, placing a sample of his perfect potion on Severus's desk along with his notes. It gleamed, turquoise bubbles rising to the top of the emerald solution, a fleeting effervescence that faded away as Draco spoke. "Father says to tell you that Mother is in France this weekend," he said.   
  
"Yes," Severus said. "Thank you, Mr. Malfoy."  
  
Lucius popped into the classroom as soon as Draco had left, a half-smile on his face and a bottle of champagne in his hand. "Draco told you the news, I assume."   
  
"I have a class in fifteen minutes," Severus said, turning back to his marking. He dipped his quill in the inkwell, shaking off the excess ink. Like tiny drops of black rain, a sparse, gleaming mist, the ink splattered down onto the blotter, and he set his quill to the first essay.   
  
Lucius sat on his desk, setting the bottle down with a heavy thud. "I've warded the door," he said. "It's been so long ... just ten minutes, please."   
  
"We'll have the entire weekend."   
  
_Atrocious interpretation of the text,_ Severus wrote next to the first paragraph. His hand did not shake as he formed the spiky letters, the quill scratching across the parchment. _Incorrect hypothesis. Insufficient consideration of the safety hazards involved in handling dragonsbane._  
  
Lucius stood behind him, planting kiss after kiss on the nape of his neck. He breathed over the moist skin, and Severus shuddered, sending a spray of ink droplets onto the parchment. "Lucius," he said.   
  
"I need you now," Lucius said. "I won't interfere with your marking, will that suit you?"  
  
He Banished Severus's trousers, his hand tracing a path from hipbone to cock as he nipped Severus's earlobe.   
  
"Yes," Lucius said into his ear, stroking his cock. "I'm touching myself ... I'm going to come, all over the back of your robes. I'm going to mark you as mine, and then banish the evidence. No one will know, no one will see how dirty you are, no one will know that you're mine – but we'll both know, won't we?"  
  
Severus bit his lip and dipped his quill in the inkwell again. _Incorrect order of addition. Poorly cited,_ he wrote. His hand trembled as Lucius scraped a thumb across the head of his cock, pulling back the foreskin and teasing his slit.   
  
"You're going to come to me tonight," Lucius said. "I'm going to fuck you in Narcissa's bed. I'm going to fill you with my come and make you beg for more."  
  
"Fuck me now." Severus dropped the quill, standing and bending over his desk. He trembled at Lucius's touch, spreading his legs and reaching for his wand. "Please, Lucius."  
  
His hand was knocked aside, Lucius drawing his own wand and casting a lubrication spell. "You're mine," he said. "No one touches you but me."  
  
He thrust two fingers into Severus, stretching him quickly, and then bit Severus's shoulder, marking him.  
  
"Now, Lucius. Fuck me," Severus said. He heard noises in the corridor, the chatter and laughter of the students drowning out Lucius's moan. "Fuck. Silencing spell?"  
  
"One way," Lucius said. Inserting a third finger and brushing against Severus's prostate, he reached around to stroke Severus's cock. "They'll never hear us. They'll never know that their professor is being buggered over his own desk, they'll never know that you're sore and limping because you've been well-fucked. They'll never know what put that smirk on your face."  
  
Lucius thrust into him, the burn of his thick cock enough to make Severus clench his hands, snapping the quill and crumpling the essays stacked on the desk. Hard and fast, he fucked Severus, pumping his cock and whispering in his ear.   
  
"Mine," he said, his breath a tickle against Severus's skin. "You're mine, mine to love and mine to mark and mine to fuck."  
  
"Yours for the next five minutes," Severus said, clenching his muscles around Lucius's cock. "Hurry up and fuck me."  
  
Lucius froze, grabbing Severus's chin and twisting his head for a savage kiss. Lips smashed together, teeth clashed, tongues tangled in a struggle for dominance. "I'll take all the time in the world," he said, "I'll take you like this, slow and gentle, I'll make you beg for it."  
  
Severus slammed back into him, impaling himself. "Now," he said. "Fuck, I don't have time for this, Lucius."  
  
"Come for me, then." Lucius stroked him off, brushing against his prostate and claiming his mouth in a deeper, gentler kiss.   
  
The essays were scattered on the floor as they rocked the desk, a haphazard ivory snowfall on the gray stones. Severus knocked the inkwell over as he scrabbled for a grip on the desk, as Lucius thrust into him, hitting his prostate and biting his neck.   
  
Severus came, staining the desk with his release and pulling Lucius over the edge with him. Spinning him around, Lucius gave him a fast, furious kiss and with a flick and a swish, restored his trousers and teaching robes.   
  
The desk was cleaned, the essays were restored in a neat pile, and then Lucius turned to Severus, hiding the marks on his neck with a glamourie. "They won't be able to see them, but they'll still be there. You'll feel them. You'll feel the burn in your arse all day, and tonight, you'll come back to me."  
  
Severus grabbed Lucius for a last kiss, thrusting the bottle of champagne into his hands. "Keep that for tonight, then," he said, and removed the wards on the door.   
  
Standing ramrod-straight, Severus watched Lucius walk away with a self-satisfied swagger, his hair shining down his back, his boot heels rapping a sharp rhythm on the floor. He left the door ajar behind him, and the students filed into the room, their chatter and bright energy filling the silence and destroying Severus's afterglow.   
  
Severus's hands were stained with ink – he banished the last evidence of their activities with a flick of his wand, and sat at his desk without a wince.   
  
"Silence. There will be an examination today, to determine how much of the material covered thus far has been retained by your pathetic, overworked brains. Put your books away and begin."  
  
Animated by his wand, the chalk flew across the board, scribbling the exam questions and punctuating the end of each one with a vicious screech. The students jumped at the noise, and Severus smirked.   
  
There was no light to be added to his life, no joy in this, nothing but the perverse pleasure of taunting and tormenting the weak. His penance left him hollow, the students' words echoing off him like a drum – each beat was another nail driven into his heart. The tedium of teaching, the unappreciative brats who left his classes empty-headed, the sharp thrill of spying, the marks that Lucius left on his body – this was the only way to save Harry Potter, but this was not the way to salvation for Severus.   
  
Flat and wrung-out, he reached for the essay on top of the pile. He took a new quill from his desk and dipped it in the inkwell, shaking the drops of excess ink onto the blotter. _Excruciating prose, incomprehensible hypothesis,_ he wrote. _The reaction of belladonna with basilisk venom is extremely volatile and not to be essayed lightly. Do not imagine that you have the competence necessary for the task._   
  
A gray and gloomy day, peppered with incandescent explosions and all the vitriolic comments he could squeeze into the margins of his students' essays – Severus wrapped himself in his dark cloak and strode out of the dungeons, heading for the edge of the wards.  
  
He Apparated to Malfoy Manor – popping through the wards like the shimmer-quick destruction of a soap bubble, he landed in the master bedroom. Lucius was waiting for him, slim and pale, naked on the bed with his beauty showcased in a pool of silver-gray satin sheets.   
  
Lucius stretched, languid and slow, displaying himself for Severus. His rosy nipples pinched hard with silver clamps, his proud cock bound with a black velvet ribbon, he was breathtaking. He was a vision of sin and beauty, a study in lust and depravity, and Severus's cock hardened as he watched Lucius touch himself.   
  
Striding over to the bed, Severus pointed his wand at Lucius, hesitating long enough to see his breath catch and his eyes widen. The thrill of power, the intoxication of control – Severus drank deeply of it, binding Lucius to the bed with silken-soft cords. "You're mine," he said, tracing the outline of Lucius's body with his wand, jabbing it into the hollow of his throat, the soft spot between his ribs, the dimple of his navel.   
  
Lucius struggled against the bonds, writhing under his touch and squirming away from the prodding wand. "Severus," he said, "oh fuck, Severus."  
  
Severus jabbed his lip, closing his mouth and tracing the curve of his throat, the planes of his chest, the dusting of golden hair on his skin. He jabbed each nipple, giving it a short electric buzz from the tip of his wand, making Lucius arch his back and moan.   
  
"More," he demanded.  
  
"In due time." Severus flung his cloak onto the nearest chair and knelt on the bed, his dark and formal teaching robes in stark contrast to Lucius's wanton nakedness. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? This is what you were begging for in the classroom today – you wanted me to make you mine, just as I am yours."  
  
Setting his wand to that low electric vibration, Severus traced Lucius's hipbones, the taut muscles of his thighs, the trail of hair from navel to groin – teasing and fleeting strokes, darting near his leaking cock but never touching it.   
  
Lucius thrashed against the restraints, wanton and desperate, obscenities falling from his lips, each adding more kindling to their passion. Severus burned for him, burned to possess him and be possessed by him. Darkness coiled around them, mounting with their desire, spreading from the matching Marks on their arms. Dark as a slick of oil spreading across a lake, fierce with need and regret, it consumed them. Lips parted, perfect hair disheveled, Lucius thrust up against Severus, rubbing his cock against Severus's groin and begging for more.  
  
Severus Banished his clothing, moving to lie over Lucius – he gloried in the silken, heady slide of skin against skin, their bodies aligned and their hearts pounding. He bent down, stealing Lucius's lips for a kiss, plunging his tongue in to explore and claim his mouth. Perfectly aligned, Severus covered Lucius's body with his own – cocks rubbing together, hearts beating together, their lips joined and their legs tangled.   
  
He stretched out, matching Lucius's pose – arms and legs spread-eagled, hands and feet touching. Their forearms rubbed together, Dark Mark against Dark Mark, and the tingle of feedback, darkness joining and increasing, made Severus shudder, moaning into Lucius's mouth.   
  
It was too much, the dark bliss enough to push him over the edge – Severus pulled away, breaking the connection between their Marks, sitting up on Lucius's thighs. He wrapped a hand around their cocks, stroking them together – with his other hand, he scrabbled for the vial of lubricant left open on the bedside table.   
  
Finger-fucking himself, Severus reached up to toy with Lucius's nipples, pulling at the silver clamps and leaning over them to leave a love-bite on his throat. He was still sore from the afternoon's fuck, still feeling the exquisite burn as he stretched himself, watching Lucius's eyes darken as he struggled, helpless.   
  
This was Severus's –control, absolute and heady. He rose up, positioning himself over Lucius's cock, and he waited there, pinning Lucius's hips to the bed and teasing him with shallow thrusts.  
  
"You'll pay for this, you damned tease," Lucius said, struggling against him. "Fuck, do it now."  
  
His eyes were storm-dark, the color of tarnished silver, and a droplet of sweat was beaded on his upper lip. Severus reached up to wipe it away, swiping his thumb across Lucius's lips and forcing them open.   
  
"You talk too much," he said. "I'm going to fuck your mouth."  
  
"Fuck me," Lucius said – proud and reduced to begging, to struggling against the bonds that Severus had imposed on him.   
  
With one last teasing, shallow thrust against Lucius's cock, Severus moved up to settle on his chest, tracing the curve of Lucius's lips with the head of his cock. He thrust in, past the velvet-warm lips and the faint hard scrape of teeth, burying himself in Lucius's mouth without giving him a chance to adjust. This was bliss, the teasing strands of magic wrapping around Severus, pulling him up through darkness and light, through the rainbow-slick surface of the water and onto a higher plane.  
  
He thrust, claiming Lucius's surrender, claiming his choked cries, claiming the shuddering ripples of his throat as he moaned. He thrust down Lucius's throat with one last vicious stroke to choke him, and then he pulled out to come on Lucius's face, the white splatter of semen like pearls on skin flushed pink.  
  
Severus kissed him, tongue-fucking Lucius and tasting himself, using his thumbs to rub his come onto Lucius's face. "My pretty whore," he said. "You'd beg me for it, wouldn't you? Just as you made me beg this afternoon, just as desperate and wanton as a whore."  
  
"Bastard," Lucius said with a gasp, rolling his shoulders to try to dislodge Severus from his chest.   
  
Relaxed and ready now, Severus moved down to his previous position, poising himself over Lucius's cock and reaching down to tug at his nipples. "Beg," he said.  
  
"Do it, damn you, just do it. I'll curse you into oblivion when this is over – I'll curse you until you feel like this ..."  
  
With one smooth motion, Severus impaled himself on Lucius's cock, and rode him, bringing him to the edge with a series of quick, steady thrusts. Lucius filled him, moaning and clenching his muscles as he came – Severus watched the tendons taut in his arms and neck, the rictus of bliss that froze his face.   
  
"Fuck you," he said, when Severus rolled off him and smirked, tugging at the ropes that held Lucius still. "Release me now."  
  
Proud and captive, beautiful and sated, entirely debauched – Severus stole one last kiss, bruising his lips before setting him free.   
  
Lucius stretched, rubbing his wrists and ankles. "You didn't need to tie them so tight."  
  
"You loved every moment of it. Don't play the blushing maiden with me."  
  
Reclining onto the pile of pillows, Lucius pulled Severus back into a loose embrace, one arm around his shoulder and his chin resting on Severus's head. Cheek against collarbone, breath against heartbeat – Severus reached down to unfasten the nipple clamps, letting the silver metal fall to the floor with a thin, high ring. In the warm daze of completion, falling asleep against his shoulder, Severus let Lucius claim a kiss and stroke his hair, soothing him.  
  
When Severus woke from the doze, warm and comfortable, twilight had muted the room, softening the hard elegant lines of the modern furniture with a misty haze. Lucius was nibbling on his ear, and stiffened when Severus moved. "We need to talk," he said.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
Lucius snapped his fingers, bringing a flare of light to the torches in the room and summoning a house elf. "Dinner for two, served here," he said.  
  
"You know that Bella has escaped from Azkaban," he said. He stretched out next to Severus, his pale skin brightened by the red marks left by their lovemaking – lines around his wrists, haloes around his nipples, bites on his neck. "Narcissa has joined her in France, to gather some of our brethren and organize the next meeting."  
  
"What?"  
  
Lucius Summoned the bottle from the table by the window, opening it with a pop and pouring the fizzy champagne into two crystal flutes. "I believe that our Lord made plans for his return – certain objects that we will be able to find and use in an attempt to call him back to us."  
  
Severus took a deep sip of champagne, rolling it around in his mouth and letting the bubbles pop against his tongue with sharp tingles that spread and ran down his spine. "You're certain?" he asked.  
  
"Very. The days of glory will return to us, our Master to lead us – stronger than he was before, more terrible and more powerful than ever. The Muggles will quake in terror and serve us, the Muggleborns and Mugglelovers will be exterminated, and there will be no end to our Lord's reign. Can you not see it, feel it like a new dawn in the future, Severus? Have you had no hints, no signs, felt no stirrings in your Mark?"  
  
Darkness swirled within him and swirled away, Severus refusing to resist Lucius's onslaught of kisses. Mouth, cheeks and neck, captured and claimed, the touch of Lucius's lips branded him. "I thought it was only my own, foolish hope," Severus said.   
  
A new dawn for his Master, a new dawn of darkness – Severus splayed his fingers on Lucius's skin, mapping the planes of his back and the hills and valleys of his spine. These hands had known darkness, had been stained with blood and death and had been tarnished with lost innocence, with betrayal.   
  
Severus rolled over, trapping Lucius with his body and bending down to kiss him. "Enough talk," he said, his blood cold in his veins – he did not want to hear it, did not want to feel the darkness creeping in on him. "As overjoyed as I am by our Master's return ... we can talk about it later. It's been too long since Narcissa graced you with her absence."   
  
He placed a trail of kisses from Lucius's chin to his navel. "We have better things to do with this weekend."


	3. Chapter 3

Severus felt it, sometimes in the night – a stirring of darkness that brushed against his Mark, the creeping chill that washed across his skin. His Master was there, dissipated and weak, washed into obscure hiding by the supernova that had destroyed his Horcruxes. His Master was still there, whispering promises and power to Severus, tempting him in the night.  
  
With rumors of the Death Eaters regrouping, and the attempt to return Voldemort to a corporeal form – rumors carried straight from Lucius's confidence to Albus's ear, and thence to the Ministry – it didn't take long for the Aurors to find Harry Potter, with his magic bursting into full flower when he reached his majority. It hadn't taken long for Severus to find Harry, bumping into him outside the Ministry.  
  
It hadn't taken long for the Aurors to reclaim Potter, luring him away from Severus with flattery and promises. It hadn't taken them long to seduce Potter with promises of controlling the magic that had haunted his life – around the corner and out of reach, an unexplained itch that persisted in spite of the strictures of the gray world he had been forced to live in.  
  
Severus rose from the comfortable chintz armchair, striding over to the hotel bathroom. Turning on the hot water, he scrubbed every trace of Potter's touch from his hands. He washed away the delicious tickle of magic and the itch of light that lingered on his skin and tormented him.  
  
His cloak still hummed with Harry's magical signature, an echo that sizzled Severus's nerves when he reached for it – this was Harry's essence, darkness alleviated by light, sin washed away and redeemed. This was his magic, his signature despite all of his flaws. Severus hesitated and put the cloak on, twirling the fabric around him in a dramatic billow as he left the room.   
  
Lucius was waiting for him in the Leaky Cauldron, silver-handled cane tapping an irregular beat against the ground. "It certainly took you long enough," he said.  
  
"Forgive me. The conference ran longer than I had anticipated, as I stayed to talk with one of the speakers." Severus made no mention of the fact that he'd found Potter, that he'd tasted the aura of innocence and purity that still lingered in the air where Potter had sat on his sofa.   
  
He did not shudder at Lucius's touch, he did not break away to hide in the shadows, and he did not protest when Lucius put a hand at the small of his back and guided him to the Floo.   
  
"Your hotel room, or the Manor?" Lucius asked. "Narcissa is back in town – I imagine that she's at home."  
  
Severus hid a frown at the thought of Lucius sensing Harry's presence in his room. "I've already checked out of the hotel," he said.   
  
He followed Lucius through the Floo, closing his eyes at the seasick whirligig motion and landed with a sure step, stepping out of the hearth and dusting his robes clean with a spell.   
  
Pearl-gray and marble-white, the foyer in Malfoy Manor was marred only by Narcissa's scowl. Severus handed his cloak to a house elf, meeting Narcissa's scowl with equanimity.  
  
She sniffed and turned away, her gauzy robes billowing around her like a fat fairy's costume. She paused at the bottom of the staircase. "If you insist on entertaining that dirty half-blood here, Lucius, do give me some warning. I prefer to remain unsoiled."  
  
She glared at Severus, but this was a battle they had fought long ago, and Severus had ceased to fight. He gave her a graceful half-bow, stepping away from her husband. "A pleasure, as always, Mrs. Malfoy."  
  
Narcissa fingered her wedding ring and smirked at Severus, leaving him alone with her husband. "I'll be in the master bedroom this evening," she said.  
  
Lucius laughed as she left, blowing her a kiss up the stairs and then turning to Severus. "I do love to watch the two of you fight over me."  
  
Lucius – when he dropped the mask, the pretense and the propriety, his darkness was insidious, addictive. Severus could not pull away from it, could not resist his appeal. "I do love to fuck you in her bed," he said, stepping closer and nibbling on Lucius's earlobe.  
  
"None of that," Lucius said, sidestepping the kiss. He led Severus into the parlor, pouring two brandies from the crystal decanter on the sideboard and gesturing him to a chair. "We have serious business to talk about tonight."  
  
Severus raised an eyebrow, and Lucius smiled at him. "We need to devise a plan to kill Harry Potter."  
  
Taking a large gulp of his brandy, Severus set the glass down with a clink. "We need to what?"  
  
Light and innocence, the radiant aura that surrounded Harry still taunted Severus. His damnation, his penance and redemption – there was no suppressing the shiver that ran down Severus's spine at the thought of Harry's death, at the loss of his penance.  
  
"We need to kill him to pave the way for our Master's return," Lucius said. "It's obvious, Severus – I can't believe that you haven't suggested it yourself."  
  
The brandy made Severus's voice ragged, the alcohol burning its way down his throat. "Perhaps I prefer to remain in our Master's good graces," he said. "Taking his revenge from him seems the swiftest path to a Crucio."  
  
"You don't know that our Master will be displeased, and you don't know that he'll be able to return, if Potter is still alive in the world."  
  
"An untrained wizard no better than a Squib? Please, Lucius. Any wizard worth the name would have been to Hogwarts and not rotted away in the Muggle world ... Potter can't levitate a feather or light a candle, much less pose a danger to our Lord."   
  
"He knew how to do neither the night that he defeated our Lord, Severus. Don't underestimate him."  
  
Severus took another gulp of brandy, choking back a cough. "If I were you, Lucius, I would rather not underestimate our Lord's need for vengeance, or the punishment he will exact on those who deprive him of it."  
  
"You're surprisingly vehement in your defense of the boy."  
  
Harry ... Severus unclenched each muscle, leaning back in his chair and forcing a sardonic smile on his face. "I'm vehement in the defense of my own skin, as any Slytherin would be. Having felt the power of our Lord's _Crucio_ , I've no desire to repeat the experience more than necessary."  
  
Severus's façade was broken when Narcissa waltzed into the room, a silk-sheer negligee showing more of her body than it hid, her dressing gown half-off her shoulders and trailing behind her. She struck a pose, legs parted, one hand on her hip. "Lucius, aren't you coming to bed?"  
  
Lucius stood at once, drawn to her as always. He cupped her chin in his hands and drew her into a tender kiss – a pale shadow of love, nothing like the fierce passion that he showed with Severus. "Shortly, my dear. We were just discussing business."  
  
"I'll just show myself out," Severus said. He Summoned his cloak and swept it around his shoulders with a flourish, nodding once to Narcissa and to Lucius. Any excuse to be away from the man threatening Harry Potter – Severus would take any excuse to avoid watching Lucius paw over Narcissa, to escape the display of their sickening, stultifying relationship.  
  
"We'll talk more tomorrow then," Lucius said. He traced his wife's collarbone, dipping down into the valley between her breasts and leaning forward for a kiss.   
  
With Severus, Lucius was fire and oil, an instant combustion – with Narcissa, it was a paler passion, a perfect, ornamental dream that was no less vivid or real. Lucius was dark, but smooth and decorative – he fit with Narcissa, snuggling into the curve of her arms, just as he fit into Severus's embrace and just as he pounded into Severus's arse.   
  
Fire and oil, passion with bruises and love-bites – the darkness in Lucius made Severus shiver, but it was more than that. It was enough to threaten Severus's grasp on the light.   
  
It was enough to extinguish his salvation, enough to threaten Harry. "No, that won't be necessary," Severus said, his voice as cold as ice and his scowl enough to crack winter. He slipped past the kissing couple into the entryway.   
  
Lucius came after him, one hand rough on his shoulder. "What the fuck do you mean? You won't be here to talk tomorrow? You won't help me eliminate the boy?"  
  
"I mean that I thought you had more class than to kiss one lover in front of another," Severus said.   
  
Lucius grabbed his other shoulder, shaking him and pulling him close. "Severus, what is your problem? You've never reacted this way to seeing me with Narcissa before."  
  
Severus broke away from his kiss, broke away from the fingers that grasped at him, fumbling to retain him. "I'm tired of being your dirty secret, your recourse for sex with Narcissa is out of town."  
  
"Severus, you ..." Lucius fumbled for his wand, looking over his shoulder at Narcissa. She stood framed in the doorway, her hair tousled, a sleepy seductive pout on her lips, and her negligee slipped down to bare her breasts. "If you mean those allegations with intent to blackmail, I assure you ..."  
  
Severus wrenched himself away and escaped into the marble hearth, ducking away from Lucius and into the green swirl of the Floo.  
  
It was a world of whirling, an eternity of nausea and banged elbows – Severus took a deep breath, the fire tickling his lungs. Away from Lucius and his dark seduction, and back to the safe haven of Hogwarts, he spun in an uneasy freefall, feet first and eyes closed.   
  
Albus blinked when Severus stumbled out of his Floo, sooty and disheveled from his struggle with the wards. "What ...?"  
  
"Headmaster," Severus said, Banishing the soot and striding over to the door.  
  
"Wait, Severus."  
  
Fawkes gave a low croon and launched himself from his perch, fluttering around the room and swooping low, his feathers brushing Severus's shoulder. The touch and song were enough to erase the bruises that Lucius had left. Severus froze, and then he reached up to touch Fawkes, turning back to face Albus.  
  
"You're welcome to use the Floo in my office at any time, of course, but when you return in such a condition, and at such a late hour ... I must admit, I am concerned for you."  
  
Severus scowled, catching the cup of tea that floated through the air to bump into his chest. "Albus, I am not ..."  
  
"You're not happy at Hogwarts, and I know that," Albus said. "At first I hoped it would pass, that you would come to like teaching ... but after seven years, that's not very likely, is it?"  
  
The chintz armchair chased Severus around the office – he froze it with a wordless spell and continued to pace. "Albus, really ..."  
  
"Sherbet lemon?"  
  
"No, thank you." Severus stalked over to the door again, wincing when his hand was stung by the ward surrounding the doorknob. "Headmaster, I really must protest ..."  
  
"I think that what you need is a change of pace, Severus. A new schedule, a new friend ... a new life, perhaps. The war is over and it's time for you to move on."  
  
Darkness swirled around Severus like his cloak as he spun around to face Albus. It still shuddered through him, spreading out through his bones and blood from the Dark Mark – without the darkness from Lucius, without the pull of the Horcruxes and without the Mastery of Lord Voldemort, it was still there. For all that Albus had tried to save him, for all of the penance that Albus had imposed upon him, it was an indelible mark on his soul.  
  
"You do not know what I need," he said. "Let me leave this room at once."  
  
The door opened with a click, and Albus waved him out. "I'll have the house elves send a tray down to your rooms for you, then – I'll wager that you've missed dinner again. Have a pleasant evening, Severus."  
  
With brandy and tea mingled in his breath and with a heavy soul, Severus stalked down to the dungeon. His only comfort was the cloak that he wrapped around him against the damp stone chill that seeped through the lower levels of the castle – the cloak that warmed and comforted him still, fibers of darkness stilling the ache in his darkness. Harry had almost touched it. With his presence, Harry had alleviated the darkness and lifted it up into the sparkling sky – darkness kissed with flares of light, with eternal blinking stars, and the cloak was more comfort now than it had been before.  
  
Albus was unrelenting in his pursuit of Severus's happiness. He made the trek down to the dungeons, laden with tea and chocolates, entering Severus's chambers without a knock. A bouncy house elf trailed behind him, levitating a tray of pastries and squeaking in its happy, shrill voice. "Excellent, thank you," Albus said, and the house elf disappeared with a smile and a pop.  
  
"Now, well," he said. He settled himself in the armchair closest to the fire, pouring two cups of tea and floating one over to Severus. A clinking procession followed it – sugar, lemon, milk, a plate of biscuits, but Severus waved them all back to the table nearest Albus.  
  
"I have to tell you," he said, "that I will no longer be able to spy for you on the affairs of Lucius Malfoy and the other Death Eaters."  
  
"Very well," Dumbledore said. He brushed aside Severus's spluttering with a wave of his hand and took another sip of his tea. Light radiated from him, serene and full, like waves coming home to the shore.  
  
"You aren't upset to have lost all inside information into the Death Eaters' plans?"  
  
"There are other ways of gathering information, ones that don't put you at risk."   
  
The fire crackled in the hearth, the sparks enhancing the twinkle in Albus's eyes. "I told you, Severus, I'm concerned for your happiness now. The war is far behind us, and there's no need for you to remain caught up in darkness and spying and those melodramatic poses that you strike while teaching."  
  
"You mean that I am not needed, now that you've found Potter and convinced him to be trained. You'll have him do your bidding, slaughtering the remaining Death Eaters and putting an end any attempt that they make to resurrect the Dark Lord." Severus's stomach turned at the thought, and he set his teacup aside.  
  
"Those are remote possibilities – but yes, Harry is here, should he be needed again." Albus waved a biscuit in the air, spraying chocolate crumbs down his long beard.  
  
"Needed? He's a boy, not a tool."  
  
No amount of vitriol fazed Albus – he smiled, gentle as a breeze, and brushed away Severus's objections. "Harry is hardly a boy, Severus. He's seventeen and old enough to know his own mind."  
  
"He's unprepared – he's unfamiliar with our world and unaware of the consequences his actions can have here. I won't let you take advantage of him."  
  
Albus raised an eyebrow, and Severus fumbled with his teacup, taking a deep sip and using it to hide his face for a moment. "Then you must be anxious to see that he's properly prepared to deal with the wizarding world," Albus said. "Excellent – I think that has the potential to make you happy at last, Severus, and you will be a superb teacher for him. I was about to suggest it as the change in your schedule."  
  
"Teach Harry Potter? Albus, you must be joking." Severus set the teacup down, shaking his head – though he had no doubt that in the end, Dumbledore would have bullied and badgered him into agreeing to tutor Harry in potions after his regular classes. Denial was useless, but compliance was unthinkable. He could not teach Harry.   
  
It was additional work for Severus, and as tedious as the first year courses – teaching Harry Potter, as ignorant as Lily when she first set foot in Slughorn's class, as stubborn as James, with all his faults, and as innocent as a Muggle. He would be no joy to teach – he would be nothing more than another brick in the wall of penance that Severus built around himself.   
  
"Kingsley has already spoken to me about it," Albus said. "He was impressed with the way that you dealt with Harry and thinks that you'd be a good teacher for him. Harry trusts you, it seems."  
  
"We shared a taxi and that is all." Severus waited, but Albus made no attempt to contradict him – he waited, but the rapid thrumming of his heartbeat did not subside. "He is young and impressionable. He would trust anyone in exchange for a kind word and some chocolates."  
  
"Perhaps he will learn to be more cautious if you take him under your wing. You have more to teach him than just potions, you know."  
  
Taking a deep breath, Severus said, "You haven't asked me why I can no longer serve as your spy among the Death Eaters."  
  
"Is it relevant?" Albus shook his head, taking another biscuit. "I was going to tell you that there was no further need, at any rate."  
  
"No further need? The Death Eaters have not been eliminated. They still pose a threat ... they are plotting to kill Harry Potter, Headmaster."  
  
"But that comes as no surprise, you see. The Death Eaters have no cunning, no startling strategies, nothing but desperation and a very few options left. We don't need you to put your life at risk in order to tell us what we can easily divine, and I would not have you risk yourself needlessly."  
  
Albus's concern washed over him, a brief flicker in his mind when their gazes connected – the brush of Legilimency against his mind, the touch used to reassure and encourage. "It is time for you to make a new life for yourself, Severus. Be of the light now, and put the darkness behind you."   
  
In the back of his mind, in the cornerstone of Severus's Occlumency shields, lingered the peace and comfort he'd found in the Vow he'd had with Albus. The purpose had changed, with the Horcruxes found – the Vow had been appeased, but the remnants were still there and still kept their hold on his mind. To betray that past, to betray Albus's trust was impossible.  
  
"I was unable to listen to Lucius plot to kill Mr. Potter with any façade of control or equanimity. I do not think that I can be trusted with the boy, if I am unable to protect him against any eventuality," Severus said, looking down at his teacup. He did not look up at Albus and did not look for the reaction to his revelation.  
  
"You can't hear of him being killed, and therefore you shouldn't be trusted with him? Really, Severus, that's quite illogical. If you're afraid to work with him because you think that you're becoming fond of him ..." Albus was insufferable and impossible to deny, and Severus sighed and shook his head.  
  
\-------   
  
Gray stone, green eyes – Harry was a contrast in the dungeons, soft against the harsh walls, his gaze crystalline and sharper than the stones, and he was waiting for Severus. He kicked his feet against the tall wooden stool, his body a study in constant fidgeting. The thud-thud-thud of his heels against the wood reverberated through the air, and Severus strode out of the shadows, his robes swirling around him with a practiced flair.  
  
"Mr. Potter," he said, "I'm glad to see that you understand the value of promptness."   
  
Harry's face was clouded over by a sullen scowl, a downward twitch of his lips, a dark swirl in his aura. He was still wearing ridiculous Muggle clothing, threadbare but clean, and his hair stood up at all ends, as though ruffled by an undirected wave of electricity. He was every iota the rebellious teenager, every atom his father's son.   
  
"Professor Snape," he said, and Severus returned his scowl with one of his own. Harry did not quaver before him or challenge him – he looked down at his hands, biting his fingernails as though bored. He bit off his thumbnail and spit it out onto the floor, but Severus Banished it before it could land.  
  
"Take care not to contaminate anything in these rooms," he said. "You'll find that the results of adding unnecessary ingredients to some potions can be less than desirable, particularly when they share a physical connection with a witch or wizard.   
  
"I'm told that the Auror division in the Ministry is not capable enough to instruct you in the rudiments of brewing potions, and I see that this must be the case. I've consented to perform the task for them."   
  
The bow of coral lips, bent in a pout, scowl hidden as he ducked his head, shying away from Severus's gaze – Potter nodded and looked down at his hands, folded neatly in his lap. "Yes, sir."  
  
"Very well. You'll find the instructions in the textbook before you, and the ingredients in the cupboards along the wall. Proceed."  
  
Potter moved without grace. He was still elbows and knees, all the gangly uncertainty of his youth, and he was stiff-backed and stumbling, refusing to look up at Severus. His hair fell down between them, a ruffled mess that shielded Harry's face.  
  
He didn't look up to see the instructions that Severus had scrawled onto the board. After his first quick glance, he busied himself with the ingredients, chopping them and mangling them. He didn't look up again to confirm the directions before he began tossing his ingredients into the cauldron, already steaming with heated water. They began to react haphazardly, the snake fangs and the nettles swirling around each other in uneven clumps. The fire flared under the cauldron, bringing the unstable mixture to a boil.  
  
Staring at his cauldron did Potter no good – the biggest bubble, rising to the surface, popped in his face. With a wet, sloughing sound, it exploded all over him, showering him with the half-finished potion. He spluttered, digging in his pockets for a handkerchief, and wiped his face clean. "You could have –"  
  
"Learn by experience, Mr. Potter. It is the most effective teacher, in the end." Severus banished the cauldron's contents, sending the unused ingredients back to the cupboards. "Begin again," he said.  
  
The boy that Severus had met – he was gone now. The boy who had accepted the strangeness of the wizarding world, who had quavered and railed against the existence of magic but had trusted Severus in the end – he was gone, and a sullen brat, the image of his father's worst traits, was in his place.   
  
Potter glared at Severus, stomping over to the cupboards and pulling the same ingredients out, taking them back to his worktable. He set them down with an ill-disguised thump, throwing the stirring rod into the cauldron with a metallic ricochet.  
  
Potter was Muggle-raised and ignorant of everything to do with potions, but he was not without redeeming qualities. He had fits of temper and flashes of brilliance – reaching for the porcupine quills too soon, he withdrew his hand before Severus could scowl at him.   
  
"Why did you refrain from adding the porcupine quills?" Severus asked.   
  
The cauldron burbled as Potter shrugged, loud enough to cover any response that he might have made. His aura resembled the gelatinous mixture that he stirred, yellow-green and thick with slow-moving, inchoate swirls.  
  
"Look at me when you answer me, boy."   
  
A spike in the power that surrounded him – it was enough to make the vials on the shelf behind Severus tremble, rattling against each other. "Control yourself," he said. "We're surrounded by delicate, volatile ingredients, Mr. Potter. If you cannot control your temper, I will be forced to discontinue these lessons."  
  
Potter shrugged again, dropping his ladle into the potion. It was swallowed up by a noisy, greedy burble, disappearing to the depths of the cauldron. "Can't wait to get rid of me again?"  
  
The fire beneath the cauldron flared brighter, fuelled by Potter's anger. "It didn't take long for you to hand me back to them the first time, did it? Scarcely half an hour and you gave me away to the Aurors. How long will it take this time?"  
  
"Potter ..."  
  
"Glad to see my backside, were you? Happy to have your posh hotel room to yourself? Once you realized that I had killed somebody, you only wanted to be rid of me, pass me off to somebody who could control me and keep me from killing any other innocent people."  
  
Severus's hands itched to slap him, to feel the sting of Potter's skin against his palms. "Potter, pay attention for more than three consecutive seconds and if you have a brain inside that thick skull of yours, try to use it. Did you even pay attention when the Aurors explained matters to you?"  
  
The potion bubbled and boiled, spilling over the cauldron rim. It spluttered as it ran down the hot metal and into the flame, spitting vapor into the air with a high, screeching fizz. Potter ignored the disaster, and Severus sneered at him as he Banished the mess. "I'll warrant you paid as much attention to them as you paid to the volatile, potentially dangerous concoction that you just created. You are indeed your father's son, woefully unprepared and criminally stupid ... it's a wonder that you have enough brains to simultaneously walk and breathe, boy."  
  
"Don't you insult my father." Potter glowed, his magic swelling up around him, the sick and listless miasma gone. Pure and fresh, brash and overwhelming, it filled the room, skating across Severus's skin and etching its way through his veins.  
  
Vials rattled, the storage cupboard shaking, thudding against the stone floor, and Severus yielded to temptation. He grabbed Potter's arm, fingers sinking into his flesh – pliant and easy, it yielded to his grip.   
  
"Don't ..." Potter began to struggle, his free arm flailing in the air, his feet skidding on the floor as he fought against Severus. "What are you doing?"  
  
Severus dragged him from the room, drinking in the squeals that Potter made as the grip on his arm tightened. "Removing you from the presence of valuable and volatile potions ingredients, you dolt."  
  
Magic sang through him at the contact, spreading from the fingers where he grasped Potter's arm. It was enough to be near Potter, to be manhandling him, to feel his flesh through his thin and tattered shirt.   
  
The corridor echoed, empty around them, and Severus released Potter, sending him stumbling into the wall. "Your Potions lessons are terminated until you can control your temper and your magic."  
  
Potter rubbed his shoulder and then folded his arms across his chest, glaring at Severus through the messy fringe of hair that drooped over his eyes. "Fine. I don't want any stupid Potions lessons. I don't want you to teach me anything."  
  
He whirled on his heel and strode away, his rubber shoes making muffled staccato thumps on the floor.   
  
"You'll need an understanding of potions if you intend to be an Auror." Severus stopped him with a nonverbal spell, throwing up an invisible ward in the corridor.   
  
Potter stopped in his tracks, refusing to turn and face Severus. His spine was slumped in a careless curve, his shoulders hunched in on himself – Severus needed no eye contact to brush against his mind with a soft sweep of Legilimency, to read in every line of his body that he lied. "I don't want to be an Auror. I want to go back to the real world."  
  
"How disappointing," Severus said, watching Potter's shoulders straighten at his words. "You begin with the disgustingly noble intention of saving the wizarding world, rescuing all of us from the darkness that looms and threatens to devour us, and then you abandon it. Stopped by your own failings, your own inadequacies – you're no better than your father. At least he died for the cause he believed in."  
  
Pressing himself against the ward, heedless of the magic that thrummed around his body, vibrating through him and setting his hair to stand on end, Potter turned his head to face Severus. "Let me go," he said. "You wanted to get rid of me and you've done it. Just let me go."  
  
Severus strode over to him and grasped him by both shoulders, pulling him away from the ward and dispelling it. He shook Potter, pinching him and looming over him until he flinched. "Foolish, imbecilic boy, will you make your way through life with wax stuffed up both ears? Learn to listen before you drown in the grief you cause yourself."  
  
Turning, he propelled Potter down the corridor, marching him to his own quarters. Potter squirmed, trying to twist away from Severus, when he released one shoulder to fumble for his wand. "You're not going to –"  
  
"Hush." Severus prodded him in the temple with his wand and then jabbed it through the wards, opening the door. "Come in."  
  
Potter stood on the threshold, twisting in Severus's grip and grabbing the doorframe. "Don't ..."  
  
"For the sake of Salazar Slytherin, get in there." Severus prodded him in the back, pushing him in through the door and shutting it firmly behind them.  
  
"Sit. What would you like to drink?"   
  
Potter ignored him, making a circle around the room, examining the bookshelves and trinkets prodded around the room. He stopped at Severus's Pensive, bending over the low table to look in the basin. The silver vapors cast a misty halo around his face, and he reached out to touch them.   
  
"I will not hesitate to hex you if you touch that, or if you meddle with any of my other belongings."  
  
Ruffling his dark hair with one hand and pushing it away from his face, Potter looked up at Severus. "What is it? It's beautiful."  
  
"It's personal. I will make you regret it if you ..."  
  
"I know, I know." Potter moved away from the Pensieve, dropping down onto the sofa in a casual sprawl of limbs. He was all pale skin and sharp angles against the crushed green velvet. Severus turned away to tap the teapot and Summon two mugs from the kitchen.   
  
"Sugar or lemon?"  
  
"I don't want anything from you."   
  
Hot water splashed out onto the counter, hissing from the teapot as Severus poured. He brought both cups over to the sofa, setting one on the coffee table in front of Potter. He added lemon to his own tea and sat at the opposite end of the sofa from Potter, leaning away from the bewitching pull of his magic.  
  
"We parted on good terms, Mr. Potter. I am at a loss to understand your current attitude."  
  
Potter's eyes were forest-dark when he scowled, his eyebrows twitching together into one thick line. Severus shook his head, blinking until the world blurred in front of him. Potter was James's son and nothing more – he was simply a boy that Severus had saved, simply a boy who wore his magic on his sleeve, drawing Severus in with a siren song of untapped power.  
  
"If, as you implied, you are angry with me because I left you with the Aurors, let me remind you that you made the choice to go with them. I would not have abandoned you if you chose to stay with me."  
  
Severus took a deep breath, biting his lips shut. There was no need to make such open declarations in front of the boy, no need to coddle him with flattery or declarations of loyalty. He folded his arms across his chest, leaning back against the arm of the sofa in a studied, indifferent pose.   
  
"You ..." Potter swallowed, his throat bobbing with the motion. He looked uncertain, half-fey and half-wild as he crossed and uncrossed his arms, shifting on the couch and then leaning toward Severus. "You ... would you, really have kept me?"  
  
"You are hardly a Kneazle, to be kept on a leash and fed from a dish on the floor."  
  
Potter leaned back and looked down then, twisting his hands in his lap before he reached for the tea, taking a sip and watching Severus with wary eyes over the rim of the cup. "I'm sorry, then."  
  
The film of anger that clung to Potter's magic fell away, dropping off in rough chunks like thick orange peel, and dissipated as it fell off. He took another sip of tea, breathing the steam up into a cloud, a haze that blurred his features, and he slurped when he drank. The noise echoed through the room, loud and crude, and Severus shook his head.  
  
"Did the Muggles fail to teach you any manners? Do not make any unnecessary noises when you eat or drink, Mr. Potter. You may have been raised by uncouth barbarians, but when you are in civilized company, comport yourself with some dignity."  
  
Potter smiled then, a real smile that lit his eyes and showed his dimples. "Muggles aren't barbarians – not all of them, sir. The Dursleys were, I suppose."  
  
The tea was cool enough to drink, and Severus took a silent sip of it, setting a good example for the boy. He set the cup down on the saucer without a clink, leaning back against the sofa arm and leaning away from Potter's wariness. Smile set aside, there was still no trust there, only tension sharp in every angle of his body.  
  
"I ... I'm sorry about earlier. I will try better, and work at controlling my magic and my temper if you'll agree to give me lessons again."  
  
"Pretty promises don't change the world, Mr. Potter," Severus said. "You may continue with your other courses of instruction without potions for the present, I imagine. Self-control will come as you ..."  
  
Potter swallowed hard, his confidence and pride abandoned as he spoke. "Please. Please, sir, let me come here for lessons still. I ... they say that I need to take Potions, that I'll need them to be an Auror. Will you please teach me?"  
  
The son of his enemy, pleading for Severus's favors, begging to be instructed by him – it was sweet, it was a heady cocktail that went through his nerves, sizzling like a firestorm, arcing from the base of his spine to spread through the rest of his body. It had all the power of the Cruciatus Curse and none of the pain.  
  
"You may come here as scheduled," Severus said, his lips curling. "I'll speak with you, when I have the time to do so, and observe your progress in self-control. When I feel that you are ready, the lessons can resume."  
  
A flash of anger sparked through Potter's eyes, a bright hard spark visible to any Legilimens, and Severus drank it up, delighting in his helpless anger. Magic flared around Potter, washing out in waves broad enough to rattle both teacups – broad enough to sweep against Severus's skin, touching him through to the marrow.   
  
Potter bowed his head in surrender, and Severus gave a sharp nod, collecting his easy victory. "You may go," he said. "Return at the same time next week."  
  
\-------  
  
Weekly lessons with the wizarding world's chosen savior, weekly chances to influence him and mould him – it was more than Severus could have asked for, it was a Slytherin's dream. He paced, waiting for Potter's arrival. He had set tea out for two, with cream and scones and all of the sweets a boy could dream of eating. He had stoked the fire, banishing the chill and damp of the dungeons. He had locked the Pensieve away in a cupboard, set away all of the fragile and breakable objects that he owned, and had strewn soft rugs on the floor.   
  
Everything was prepared, and Potter was late. He burst through the door at last, entering without a knock. Albus was on his heels, smiling and tearing through Severus's wards like so much tissue paper. "I must apologize for making Harry late, Severus, but I was so interested in hearing about his schooling. You must ask him about it sometime, the Muggle alternatives to our classes here are simply fascinating."  
  
Albus paused for breath, reaching over to ruffle Potter's hair. "What was it called again, that school of yours? Highstone?"  
  
"Stonewall High, the local comprehensive." Potter moved away from Albus's touch, ducking against the wall and hunching in on himself. Eyes dark with an unspoken plea, he looked at Severus.  
  
Severus responded without a thought, drawn in by Potter's vulnerable pose. "Thank you, Headmaster, but as fascinating as the Muggle ways may be, they are irrelevant to today's lesson."  
  
"Yes, yes, of course. I'm sorry that I made Harry late ... to tell the truth, Severus, he would have been on time, save that I insisted that he was confused with regard to the location of his lessons. I led him to your classroom first and looked for you there, because I was sure that you wouldn't hold a potions lesson in your private chambers – but I see now that I was wrong and Harry was right after all."  
  
Severus nodded, twisting his lips into a sneer. "Yes, as you see, I've decided to hold the theory part of the lessons in a more comfortable setting. It wouldn't do to have the Aurors complaining because their precious protégé was being mistreated."  
  
"Yes, well ... I'm sure that there will be no complaints, Severus. You're an excellent teacher." Albus smiled, brushing against Severus's mind with a casual sweep of Legilimency. Finding no deceit, he was bright-eyed and placated, and made one last attempt at mussing Potter's hair before he left. "Potions may not be as glamorous as the other kinds of magic you're learning, Harry, but don't be fooled by that. They're just as important, and might even save your life someday – make sure you pay attention to everything that Professor Snape teaches you."  
  
There was silence when the door shut behind Albus, the room ringing with the abrupt withdrawal of his forceful magic. Severus motioned for Potter to take a seat on the sofa, and followed him over with the tea tray.  
  
When not sulking, Potter took two sugars in his tea, and buttered his scone before he piled it with cream and jam until it oozed. Like congealing blood, the mess dripped off the scone and onto the saucer, and Severus shuddered. "If you besmirch any of my furniture with your uncouth eating habits, I'll take the price of them out of your hide."  
  
Potter grinned at him, licking a spot of jam from the corner of his mouth. His tongue was quick, as impudent as he was. "I liked it better when I was the precious protégé, someone to be coddled and not someone who would be mutilated for the price of a sofa."  
  
Severus stared at him, following the sticky smear of the jam and the path of his tongue, and scowled. "Let me warn you before we start these lessons," he said. "I won't take any of your cheek, so you can leave your attitude and entitlement back at the Ministry where there are sycophantic fools who appreciate it."  
  
Taking a huge bite of his scone and smearing jam across his mouth and down his chin, Potter grinned at Severus. "If I meet any sycophantic fools at the Ministry, I'll be sure to send you word express. Have you seen the wicked falcons they use for the express post?"  
  
"You're more likely to be unable to recognize a sycophant than to convince me that there are none at the Ministry." Severus Banished the remains of the tea tray, the half-eaten scone disappearing from Potter's hands.   
  
A rough Scourgify took care of the jam on Potter's mouth – he yelped, rubbing at the pink skin. "That stung," he said.  
  
"Try to show some level of civilized table manners, if you please. I refuse to eat in the presence of a barbarian." Severus took up his own cup, the only remnant of the vanished tea, and took a small sip. The taste of lemon, with its perfect acidic tang, the best complement to his tea, lingered in his mouth after he set the cup down.  
  
Potter watched him drink, following Severus's every motion with his eyes, and Severus glared at him. "You may be too blind yet to see it, but the Ministry is full of fools and wretches. They'll use you to further their own careers if they can, but most of them are too stupid to do it with any success – of course, you're not going to be very successful at repulsing their attempts, are you?"  
  
"You don't need to be insulting." Potter's voice deepened with his anger, the aura of magic swirling around him with dark undertones.   
  
Severus had saved him, yes, had preserved his innocence, but hadn't made him into some whitewashed mannequin or witless fool. Though there was no premature blight on his soul, there was darkness to spare in Potter. It shone forth in his anger, darkening his light.  
  
Severus drank it in, feeding off the energy that sparked through the air, hot and bright and sweet as life-force. He was drawn to power like a Dementor to happiness, drawn to Potter's brightness like a Dementor to an unwary soul ready for the Kiss. "You still can't control your emotions, can you? Have you learned nothing, this past week?"  
  
The anger spiked higher, hotter, and Severus drew on it and shaped it into a flame-bright shield around himself. "Are you capable of learning, or are you too much the useless, hopeless waste of magic that your father was?"  
  
Potter's magic roared to a crescendo, scorching Severus's fingertips and catching him in the backlash. "You know nothing about my father, you malicious, manipulative old bat."  
  
He rose from the sofa, shaking and wild-eyed and towering over Severus. He reined his magic in, Severus shaking from the sudden withdrawal of it, and his hand flew in an open arc, slamming into Severus's face with an echoing smack. "I know everything, did you know that? They told me what happened, how my father saved your life that night. The Dumbledore told me earlier about the Life Debt that you owe to my father. You're a jealous, bitter old man stewing in your own self-perceived superiority over others, but you are nothing compared to James Potter."  
  
Without a word, Severus healed the stinging in his cheek, and put his wand aside, the wood clattering onto the coffee table and rolling out of his easy reach. "Well done," he said. "You had it in the end – did you feel that?"  
  
Potter gaped at him, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling with his leashed rage. He was beyond reason in his temper, with his pale skin pinked and his dark hair tousled. "What?"  
  
"At the end, you took control of your magic instead of letting it control you – just before you slapped me. I do hope that you'll be able to refrain from using such barbaric, Muggle methods in the future, Mr. Potter, but it did prove effective."  
  
"What?"   
  
"Sit down before you find that you are in fact incapable of simultaneous coherent speech and standing upright." Severus waved him back to the couch, delighting in his unthinking obedience. Like father, like son – the Potters were easy to manipulate, bending to Severus's will like new reeds in the wind.   
  
Like father, like son – James Potter had defied Severus, had defiled him and pushed him into darkness, but he pushed that fact away. Harry was not the arrogant, spoiled pureblood wizard that his father had been. Stifled by his gray Muggle upbringing, clad in his old clothes, he fidgeted on the sofa, biting his fingernails. "I don't understand," he said.  
  
"Take the time to understand how it felt. The magic flowed through you, strengthened by your rage – it was stronger than you were. It controlled you, instead of the converse, but then you were able to seize it. You pinched it off at the source and bottled it up inside, storing it. You must master your own magic, rather than letting it master you."  
  
Severus's teacup shattered into a host of jagged porcelain pieces when Potter let loose the restraint he had placed on his power. The tea ran out over the white shards, an amber pool flowing over the ruined cup and the table. Dark, angry power flowed around Harry, reaching out to coil around Severus, heating the room and shaking the books on their shelves. "You bastard," Potter said, "you utter and unmitigated bastard, you did that deliberately."  
  
"Of course I did. How do you expect to learn control, if your emotions are not put to the test?"   
  
Potter scrambled up from the couch, magic surging around him in a wild, inchoate rage, and he scrabbled for Severus's wand on the coffee table, grasping and brandishing it at him. "Don't you do that ever again."  
  
The wand wavered, pointed at Severus's heart. "I know that you think I'm stupid and you're sly and clever, some sort of sneaky Slytherin prince, but you know, I'm not that stupid and the Aurors have explained everything to me, all right? Don't treat me like that."  
  
Severus summoned his wand with a nonverbal _Expelliarmus_ , smirking as it flew out of Potter's hand. "Do you speak to all of your teachers in that tone of voice, or do you reserve it for me?"  
  
Potter's hand was clenched in the air, his tendons taut in his forearm and his muscles spasming. "You bastard ..."  
  
"Your vocabulary does not impress me. If you are sincere in your desire to become an Auror, then you must study Potions. You will not further that goal by antagonizing me."   
  
His words, chosen with care, were enough to push Potter over the edge – the right targets chosen, and he was as impetuous as his father had been before him. He launched himself at Severus, grappling with him and fighting him for the wand. He was a warm and squirming weight in Severus's arms. The rapid thump of his heartbeat resonated against Severus's own breastbone. Magic sparked between them, and its pull on Severus was irresistible.  
  
"You know nothing," Severus said, succumbing to temptation and sinking his teeth into Potter's delicate earlobe. He bit down hard enough to taste Potter's heartbeat, to drink of his magic. "You think that the Aurors have revealed every facet of the wizarding world, every detail of your father's history and mine in the scant weeks that you have been here?  
  
"Contrary to all appearances, you are not a fool, Harry. Don't act like one."   
  
Severus released Potter and sent him sprawling onto the floor, pointing the wand at him before pocketing it. "Now," he said, "shall we begin again?"  
  
"You ... there's nothing to begin. I don't care what they say, you are a greasy, sadistic bastard and I don't believe that you have anything at all to teach me." Potter scrambled to his feet and made for the door, but Severus followed him, pinning him against the wood.   
  
Innocence was a breath away from him, Potter's lips were parted, his cheeks flushed and his eyes shining as he squirmed, trying to break away from Severus. The pulse twitched in his throat, the flutter of blood through his veins – he was vivid and warm and real, he was not some distant and untouchable figment that Severus had saved.   
  
Severus leaned closer, one hand on the doorknob and the other pinning Potter's shoulder to the door. Their hips touched, their bodies pressed together, and Severus felt Potter's body heat, the delicious thrum of Potter's pure magic, the warm whisper of his breath. This was sweet salvation and this was dark temptation, the blood rushing through Severus's veins and pooling at the base of his spine, the intoxication of Potter's nearness going to his head.  
  
"I have nothing to teach you, is that so?" Severus leaned in until their cheeks brushed, the faint buzz of Potter's stubble grating against his skin. "You surely don't imagine that another wizard, raised as a Muggle, just as you were yourself, might have nothing to tell you. Do you imagine that I have no tips to help you acclimate yourself to the world where you find yourself?  
  
"If you choose to abandon your mission to save the world, if you abandon the training that the Ministry has been good enough to offer you ... then you have no need of my Potions expertise, it's true. But do you think that I can teach you nothing more than that? You've learned the beginnings of control here already. You're going to be a powerful wizard, Harry, and I can help you on that path."  
  
Potter thrust the weight of his body against Severus, struggling to be free. "I can't learn anything from you if you're going to be such a bastard all the time."  
  
"You're never going to learn anything if you don't start using your brain, Potter. I am not your enemy." Severus backed away, drunk on the power that spread from his contact with Potter. It was heady and sharp, flowing freely between them – their magic resonating together, their connection formed a loop, feeding back on itself.   
  
He had a second of warning when Potter shifted his weight to one foot, before he brought his leg up. A foot in Severus's stomach, Potter's leg forcing him away, and Potter twisted out of Severus's grasp. "Stop it."  
  
Potter rubbed his shoulder as he retreated to the far side of the room. He backed away from Severus, keeping several meters distance between them, until he ran into the bookcase. It shook under his weight, the books jostling each other in their tidy rows and fluttering their pages. "Don't touch me. Don't touch me," Potter said.  
  
Severus reached out, his fingers hovering in the air over Potter's shoulder. Magic hummed through his fingers at the near connection, speeding his heartbeat and catching his breath. "What is it?" he asked. "Why don't you want to be touched?"   
  
"Get away from me." Potter ducked under Severus's hand and dashed for the door. His rubber shoes flapped against the floor, and he was stopped only by Severus's spell, a quick Impedimenta that caught him like a fly in honey.  
  
"Harry. Harry, listen to me – no, I won't touch you."  
  
Severus approached, facing Potter and standing an arm's length away from him. "Harry, why have I lost your trust? What's happened, that you won't let me teach you, won't let me even touch you?"  
  
The thrill of power had lost nothing – it rumbled through Severus as he faced a defenseless Potter. Eyes closed in defeat, Lily's green eyes hidden, he was the image of his father, the image of Severus's enemy. He was arrogant, he was angry, he was unbearable, and yet his aura was afire with the clear bell-tones of pure magic. Around Potter, flaring out to touch Severus, the power resonated and beckoned. It was a shield, trembling and potent, flaring up to push Severus away when he stepped forward.  
  
Severus broke the spell with a snap, his knuckles popping and his wand falling back into his pocket. "Remember, Harry? You trusted me once – trusted me to protect you and guide you through a world that you had been brought into against your will. I helped you and guided you ... are you going to forget all of that and discard your trust for me, just because you disagree with my teaching methods?"  
  
"My father ..."  
  
"Your father and I were never friends, but I will not insult him in your presence unless it is to prove a point."  
  
Severus reached out and took Harry's elbow, guiding him to the sofa. "It was a lesson, and nothing more. Let go of your anger instead of allowing it to master you.  
  
"You can't be trusted around volatile potions ingredients until you master your anger, Mr. Potter. You can't learn advanced spells or perform even rudimentary spells in some branches of magic. You will do your purpose no good if you are not the master of your own self."  
  
Harry shifted away from Severus, moving to the far end of the sofa and watching him without fidgeting or blinking. "I did trust you," he said. "I was naïve and lost, and I trusted you. I'll do it again if you prove to me that I can trust you."  
  
Severus nodded, swallowing, and saw the bright sparkle return to Potter's eyes, the swirls of dark emotions falling away from his aura. "Work on clearing your mind before our next lesson," he said. "Let your anger and all of your other emotions leave you and work to keep your thoughts still and calm. With daily practice, it will become second nature to you before long."  
  
Potter smiled at Severus before he left, lingering on the threshold and fidgeting with his spectacles. "Professor?" he said.  
  
"I'm sorry ... about the way that I attacked you earlier, and about the things that I said about you when I was angry."  
  
Cursed by two generations of Potters – as earnest and sincere as they were arrogant and overbearing, as Gryffindor as Godric himself and obsessive to a fault in fairness and justice. Severus nodded and let him slip through the door, holding in a sigh when Potter withdrew all of his warmth and vibrancy from the room as he left.


	4. Chapter 4

Dumbledore interrupted Severus's next lesson with Potter, ambling down to the dungeons with Fawkes on his shoulder and a jaw-stretching grin on his face. "Severus, Harry, I'm so glad that you're both still here. I wanted to talk to the two of you together."

Harry, kneeling on the floor and deep in his breathing exercises, did not look up at the intrusion. Severus brushed across the surface of his mind, calming the last anxious fluttering thoughts that he found there, and helped him to emerge from the trance. "Harry."

"I must say, Severus, these are very unusual potions lessons that you're conducting here. Not a cauldron or textbook in sight, and ... Severus, is that tea? Milk, please, and two sugars."

Severus poured for him without a grumble, while Harry was scrambling up onto the sofa and accepting a second cup of tea for himself. "Are there any scones left, Professor?"

"The appetite of a growing boy, isn't that right, Harry?" Albus chuckled and conjured a plate of treats, watching Harry wield a butter knife like a sword through the cream and jam. "Arabella tells me that you often went hungry at the Dursleys."

Spine straight and shoulders back, Harry dropped the scone back onto the plate. It landed, jam first, with a soft plop. "You were there at the Ministry when I said that I wasn't going to answer any questions about my past. You decided to put me with the Dursleys and you decided to leave me there, giving up any right to hear about my time with them. I'm not discussing it, and that's final."

His father's traits fell away in that instant, and his mother's determination shone through him – sunlight filtered through colored glass, a half-dream, half-memory twisted through time. "Harry ..."

Severus reached out to touch his wrist, to lay his fingers against Potter's pulse, but he stopped before touching him. Albus watched them, one eyebrow quirked, and Severus, with his hand hovering midair, changed direction and retrieved the fallen scone. He offered the plate to Harry. "Don't allow the Headmaster to pressure you into anything."

Harry's eyes shone with a smile for Severus as he reached for a scone. Their fingers brushed, the touch sending a thrill down Severus's arm – he looked away from Harry, staring down at the plate and the golden scones arranged in a semicircle.

The silence was broken when the Floo flared, Lucius stepping out of the hearth with a swagger to his hips. "Severus, did you know that –"

He brushed the last trace of soot from his dove-gray cloak and it fell to the hearthstones in a graceful, black arc as he looked up at last.

Severus stood, wand in his hand and pointed at Lucius. A dozen hexes hovered on his tongue, the darkness creeping in and coiling around the corners of his mind, taking hold of him and providing him with more ammunition. A curse, half-formed, sizzled down Severus's arm, and it rested in his hand, heating his wand and sparkling on the tip.

Lucius stepped aside, his cloak swirling around his calves. "Headmaster Dumbledore, what a surprise to see you here," he said, "and Mr. Potter – I certainly never thought that I'd find you in Severus's private quarters on a sunny afternoon like this. The dungeons are so damp at this time of year, aren't they?"

Albus nodded to Lucius, leaning back after pouring himself another cup of tea. "Mr. Malfoy, an unexpected visit indeed."

Lucius showed his teeth when he smiled. He slipped his hand into his pocket, stepping out of Severus's range and moving closer to Potter. "I thought that I would drop by to visit with an old friend."

"I hardly think that was the case," Severus said. He moved to stand in front of Potter, brushing aside the exploratory, insidious tendrils of Lucius's magic. "I'm aware of the fact that you consider yourself to be above the rules that apply to others, Malfoy, but even you ought to understand the significance of a set of personal wards. I imagine that they made it clear that you are trespassing."

Lucius shrugged, his hair rippling in the low, rosy light from the fire. "Personal wards are none of my concern. I'm on the Board of Governors at Hogwarts, and need to be able to access the school in case of an emergency. Wouldn't you agree, Headmaster?"

The buzz of Harry's magic skated along Severus's nerves. Potter came up behind him, his breath warm on Severus's neck, and moved to the side, watching Malfoy. Without sparing him a glance, Severus moved in front of him to shield him again.

"I've made it clear that you aren't wanted here, Lucius," he said before Albus could answer. "Be good enough to wipe up the soot before you leave."

"Severus, you've never denied me anything before in your life. Would you deny me the chance to savor this delicious irony?"

Lucius paused, striking a pose before the fireplace – a black silhouette against the dancing flames, the elegant line of his cloak draping down and swishing around his legs. "I come to tell you the news that I've heard – that Harry Potter is working for the Ministry of Magic – and who do I see here but Harry Potter?"

Lucius ducked around Severus, his cloak brushing against Severus's outstretched hand. He reached out and put a hand on Severus's shoulder, holding him back. Velvet-soft, the touch was cloying and clinging, as musky and seductive as the smell of overripe fruit. It overwhelmed his senses and muffled them, the dark magic seeping through his skin and into his veins, enough to intoxicate him. "Malfoy, don't you ..."

"Severus, where are your manners? Is this any way to treat a guest in your home?"

Lucius stripped off his gloves and offered his hand to Potter. "Lucius Malfoy, Mr. Potter. I'm so pleased to make your acquaintance at last. I've heard a great deal about you ... from many sources."

Harry's arms were folded across his chest, but he did not flinch away from Lucius's touch, did not flinch or react at all. Severus drew in a sharp breath. "Harry, don't ..."

"Stop hovering over the boy like a broody mother hen, Snape. He doesn't need you to interfere with his every move."

Albus finished his tea, setting his cup on its saucer with a sharp, resounding clink, and he rose from his chair, the air hazy around him with undiluted power. "Mr. Malfoy, I think that Professor Snape has made it quite clear that you are not welcome in his rooms. Although you are welcome on school grounds as a member of the Board of Governors, I'm afraid that the welcome does not extend to the personal quarters of the faculty here."

Malfoy's lip curled up at Albus, and he shook his head. "You won't be able to hide Harry Potter away from the world forever, Dumbledore. He's the savior of the world as we know it, not the savior of Severus's damp and moldy dungeons. He deserves to be out in the sunlight, and the public deserves to see him and know that he is well."

He reached for Potter again, fingertips close enough to brush together, but Potter glared at his outstretched hand, pushing it away with an unfocused wave of magic. "Don't touch me."

Stumbling from the force of Harry's magic, Malfoy grabbed Severus's shoulder. Dark magic – like ether, like slow poison – passed between them at the point of contact, spreading through Severus. It resonated through his bones, poured through his blood, lulling him and comforting him.

"I wondered why you were so solicitous of Harry Potter's welfare, Severus. I can't say that I blame you – he's very attractive, isn't he? Is that why you decided to look past the sins of the father in order to fuck the son, as it were?"

Malfoy's hand was wrenched from Severus's shoulder with a blast of wild magic, a vehement tempest pouring from Harry. "I don't know why you are still here," Harry said, "but you've been asked to leave more than once. Don't stay here to insult me or my father."

The air around Harry shimmered, waves of heat shining out from him. Stepping in front of him and capturing his gaze, Severus reached into the vortex and put a hand on Harry's arm. "Take deep breaths, control your magic. Don't let it control you – that's it, Harry."

"You're having some troubles with your protégé, I see," Lucius said. He tried to step around Severus again, leaning in toward Harry.

"That can happen when a wizard isn't taught magic until later in life, he never learns to properly ground and control his magic. That's the problem with Mud-Muggleborn wizards, they've not been taught how to channel their emotions from infancy as real, pure-blood wizards are. Of course, it's much worse when the wizard doesn't even make it to Hogwarts, isn't it?"

Taking a step closer, he reached out to Potter. "You see, Mr. Potter? I understand the problems that you face and I know how to surmount them. I can teach you ... I can show you so much that you don't know about this world. Don't allow yourself to be blinkered by these ridiculous, nonsensical notions that Snape and Dumbledore have been spouting. Come with me ... let me teach you."

Malfoy's eyes glinted silver in the firelight, and his face shone with promise and allure. He wove a spell with his words, the magic sparkling like black diamonds in the air around him, sharp and perfect. He reached out to touch Potter's sleeve, his fingers grasping the fabric and holding it.

Severus took a deep breath, the burn of air in his lungs enough to cut him away from the darkness. "You will regret this, Malfoy. I'm not blinkered by pretty ethics or notions of justice, and I tell you now – if you do anything that causes harm to come to Harry, you will regret it threefold."

"That's enough, gentlemen." Albus intervened before Severus hexed Malfoy, separating the two of them with a ward that hummed through the air between them. It pushed them apart, Severus gritting his teeth and fighting to stay on his feet.

"Mr. Malfoy, I believe that you were leaving, unless you are here on school business, perhaps?" Albus said. "In that case, let us proceed to my office."

"I have unfinished business with Snape, and Mr. Potter hasn't replied to my proposition, either." Malfoy fought the ward that swept him toward the door, his cloak fluttering around his legs as he struggled to stand. His hand fumbled in his pocket and he drew his wand. "I protest this unwarranted attack upon my person."

"You were warned, Malfoy. You aren't welcome in my quarters, and Harry wants nothing to do with you. Get out."

Albus pushed Malfoy out of the room, nodding at Severus as he closed the door behind him. The sound echoed, Severus slumping as he was released from the ward that had clutched at him like molten elastic, clogging his senses and freezing him in place.

The dark aura that oozed from Lucius had disappeared when the door slammed shut, the last lingering particles vanishing with a snapping sound that gave Severus a headache. He busied himself with the teapot, pouring himself another cup and adding a pain relieving potion to it.

Achingly and numbingly sweet, tinged with a greasy, rainbow-slick overlay of darkness like oil on water, the backlash ran through Severus and the room vibrated with Potter's aura, an overload of magic that heightened Severus's pain. "What was that?" Potter demanded. "Who the hell was that, and what was wrong with him? Why did he do that?"

Rubbing his temples until the potion took effect, Severus ignored Potter's questions. "Practice those breathing exercises that I showed you," he said. "Your control is execrable."

"You never answer any of my questions," Harry said. "What kind of teacher are you, anyway? What was that spell that the Headmaster cast between the two of you? What was Malfoy offering me? How did he get through your wards?"

"Control," Severus said. His headache faded away, and he looked up at Potter. "Your patience is as lacking as your temper.

"To answer your questions briefly – Lucius Malfoy was once a friend, and is now an unwelcome intruder. Do not trust anything that he says, and do not allow yourself to be alone with him, for he bears you no good will."

Potter opened his mouth to protest, and Severus cut him off with a sharp glare. "Do you trust me, or no? I will tell you what you need to know. The rest of it is irrelevant."

Deep breaths, a well of calmness – erasing the earlier pain and unrest – it all came from Potter. His eyes shut, his face smoothed of its angry lines, he radiated light. All of the darkness of anger and frustration was gone from him, and his magic made Severus's blood sing. "I do trust you," Harry said.

"I'm flattered," Severus said, offering his hand to Harry, skin tingling in anticipation of their touch.

His hand hovered there for a long moment before Harry shook his head. "I'm sorry, I ... I can't."

"Very well, then," Severus said, taking a step away from him. He was sliced open with coldness, enough to make him shiver.

He swung his cloak down from its peg on the wall and wrapped it around himself, stalking away to stand by the fireplace and letting it billow out behind him. "Let's move on to the rest of the lesson. There's a Potions textbook on the lowest shelf, there – you may begin with the first chapter."

\-------

Severus turned away from his potion, simmering in his largest cauldron, taking down another jar of stewed slugs and beginning to cube them. The rhythmic snick of his knife and the precision of straight lines and equal volumes calmed Severus, lulling him into complacency. Cut and cut and cut – he sliced the slugs into perfect cubes, adding them to the Flobberworm base. He fell into the motions of brewing, stilling his emotions and clearing his mind.

Potter entered without knocking, and Severus did not look up. Cut and cut and cut, another set of perfect cubes formed under his fingers, and were added to the cauldron.

"You weren't in your chambers," Potter said. "Albus told me to find you here, but I thought ..."

"You are not required to do any thinking here, Mr. Potter. You are a student now – you need only follow instructions."

Severus bit the inside of his cheeks, holding the skin between his teeth until it smarted. He dipped into the jar and pulled out another handful of slugs, spreading them out in even lines and reaching for his knife. Potter came to stand in front of him, his reflection shimmering in the brewing potion, hazy and indistinct.

"We will be having our lessons in this classroom from now on," he said.

"Malfoy tried to kill me this week," Harry said, setting his cauldron on the worktable with a dull clang.

Severus looked up at him then – thin and sullen, Potter had a new blemish on his aura today. Brushing against his mind with the feather-soft stroke of Legilimency, Severus filtered through the worry and anger, the nattering anxieties and the sharp jabber of impending mortality. He drank deeply of Potter's mind, absorbing the darkness from him. Bitter betrayal lurked there, permeating the shadows of his mind and casting a poisonous, wretched mist throughout him.

"I see that you've survived. Not that cauldron, Potter – take down the pewter one, size five."

"Is Potions the only thing that's important to you, then? You don't even care that I was almost killed."

Severus added the last of the cubed slugs to his cauldron and wiped his hands clean. "You'll be making a forgetfulness potion today and will need to pay especial attention to the fumes. Once the potion is simmering in the final stages, they are as potent as the potion itself, and if you inhale them, you may find that you've forgotten how indifferent I am to your plight."

He ignored Potter's muttered insult and reinforced his Occlumency shields, thickening them and changing their focus to Dumbledore – stern in his purple spangled robes, adding milk and sugar to the tea and then forcing a cup of it on Severus, the bitter tea of his childhood memories enough to make his throat close up. Severus kept the image in the front of his mind, the bitter tea that they had shared when they destroyed the Horcruxes, the promises that Albus had extracted from him.

"You will not endanger Harry, Severus. Your closeness to him – Lucius Malfoy saw the two of you together, has seen evidence of your protective nature on more than one occasion. Once he draws the connection, you've put Harry in peril." The words played through his mind like a refrain, a broken loop that he took control of and used to strengthen his shields. The weakest and most flawed of building materials could be used in the mind, and this was stronger than that – Severus was a master of the mental arts.

Potter was nothing to him – it was a sentence that he added to the refrain, building up the defenses of his mind, restoring the walls that Lucius had tried to breach. Potter was nothing to him, and Severus jumped, dropping the knife with a clatter when Harry touched his arm.

"Do you want to see it?"

"Unless it is your finished potion or some indication that you've learned how to speak the English language properly, using pronouns only when they have clear referents ... then no, I do not want to see it."

Potter grinned at him then, shaking the sullenness away with a visible shudder. It ran through his thin shoulders, blurring the lines of his body, and Severus closed his eyes. "You're in an especially grumpy mood today," Potter said.

"Your potion, Mr. Potter, if you please. Call upon me only if you are in need of assistance."

"You used to call me Harry, you know. Look, Severus. Lucius Malfoy tried to kill me. It has the advantage of sorting one's priorities out, death." Potter stuck his arm into Severus's line of vision, a snake coiled around his forearm. It opened its mouth, tasting the air and hissing at Severus.

"Don't you like my new pet? She's actually quite friendly once you get to know her, and once we sorted all of the misunderstandings out. She didn't want to kill me at all, did you pet?"

Potter was comfortable with the reptile, not shying away from its touch as he did with humans. He rubbed his cheek against the snake's pointed head, affectionate and calm – it flicked its tongue out to caress his cheek, tasting the salt there and leaving no mark behind. It was venomous, marked with bright bands. Severus had failed in his task if Malfoy had made an attempt on the boy's life already.

"You may address me as Professor or sir while you are studying with me, Mr. Potter, and while you are studying with me, you will focus on those lessons and not on your new familiars or any other baubles that catch your attention."

Severus flung his hand out, pointing at Potter's cauldron, and he went, obedient to Severus. The thrill of Potter's submission did not coil down Severus's spine, did not intoxicate him with its power, and did not tingle along his skin or titillate his nerves. Bending his head over the simmering potion, Severus let his hair fall in front of his face, shielding him from Harry.

"You seemed interested enough in Lucius Malfoy last week," Potter said. "How was I to know that you wouldn't want to hear about him this week?"

The forgetfulness potion sizzled when Potter added the crushed daisies too soon, a greenish haze spreading through the room. He chopped his newt skin haphazardly, the noise clanging through the air and setting Severus's teeth on edge. "Besides, I've heard all about it," Potter said. "How close the two of you were in school, how everyone thinks that you used to be lovers, how Narcissa Malfoy doesn't miss a chance to cut you down in public because she's trying to cling to the shreds of her marriage."

"As loathe as I am to disappoint your expectations, Mr. Potter, the wizarding world is not a soap opera set up for your entertainment. There is nothing between Lucius Malfoy and myself, but should there be ... it would be our private business, and not a matter for your prurient speculations.

"Moreover," Severus said, looking up at him with teeth bared in a sharp rictus, "you may find it unwise to speculate too closely about any potential relationship between Mr. Malfoy and myself. I'm quite certain that neither he nor his wife would appreciate it and you may find yourself charged with slander. Be careful, Mr. Potter – the world here is full of such unexpected pitfalls."

"I ... you, but –"

"Stop stammering and mind your potion before it explodes in your face."

"I didn't mean – I was just asking, all right? I wanted to know, that's all."

Severus strode over to Potter and loomed over him, his lank hair swinging down to brush the other man's cheekbones. "You may wish to reconsider your choice of subjects. Chosen One and Savior of the wizarding world or no, you would do well to focus your curiosity elsewhere – I will not tolerate questions about my personal life while you are my student."

The potion sizzled, fumes coming up to warm their faces. Severus took a deep breath and coughed, looking down at the cauldron before Vanishing its contents. Burbling liquid coated with a layer of scum, the mangled daisies floated at the top and bobbed with the rising bubbles. "This potion is as pathetic as you are inquisitive, Mr. Potter. Begin again."

Potter glared at him, his hair ruffled by a rush of anger. "Control, Mr. Potter," Severus said. "Clean out the cauldron first, or are you a complete dimwit?"

"I'm not –"

"Clean out your cauldron." Severus turned away, letting his robes billow out around him with dark and intimidating flutters. He built his mental walls higher, clinging to his Occlumency, clearing his mind and taking deep, drugging breaths. His blood awash in oxygen, he floated high above the need for penance or anger, and he clenched his fists, driving his fingernails into his palms until it stung.

The sound of water splashing and Potter scrubbing drew Severus down from high, and he stalked over to examine the work. He smirked down at Potter's steam-reddened hands. "At least you know how to scrub – there's a future for you as a dishwasher, I imagine."

"I know that. Do you think that I don't?" There was no bright spark of anger in Potter's words, no flare in his aura – his insult was absorbed into a spreading pool of calm, and Severus blinked.

"Manual labor to tame the savage beast? I see that I'll have to reconsider my methods, then – I never would have imagined that a spoiled little brat would soil his hands with grease and dirt. Your father would roll in his grave, boy, if he could see you now."

"How do you think I supported myself, after the Dursleys kicked me out?" Potter refused to meet Severus's gaze, focused on his scrubbing. "I was sixteen and I'd failed most of my classes. Dishwasher was one of the best jobs I could get – paid the bills, more or less, and it wasn't too dangerous."

After all of Severus's jabs, after his high and reinforced walls, Potter still looked up at him with trust shimmering in his eyes and bright on his face. He was as bright as the dawn star, shimmering with power – full-bodied and addictive, smoke-sharp and knife-thick, as rich as a deep, aged whiskey. "I wasn't a spoiled brat, no matter what you think of me, Professor, and I'm not a freak, no matter what the Dursleys said. I'm not a murderer, no matter what the Aurors think of me. I'm no threat, no matter what Lucius Malfoy thinks, and no savior, no matter what anyone thinks. I'm just Harry."

"As impressed as I am with that sweeping assessment of your skills, just Harry, let me suggest that you be a dishwasher rather than a melodramatic teenager. That cauldron will not finish scrubbing itself." Severus reached past Potter, stretching up to take down the jar of dried glassy-winged sharpshooters.

Potter flinched when Severus came near him. The cauldron thudded down in the bottom of the sink with an echoing, brassy clang, and Potter ducked away from Severus, his hands up to protect his face.

Pressed back against the shelves, his arms up and his face hidden, Potter made himself as small as possible. Severus stared at him and then reached up for the sharpshooters, taking the jar down and setting it on the counter with a thump. "What did they do to you?"

Harry uncurled at once, not meeting Severus's gaze. He recoiled from his touch and shuffled his feet on the ground before he sprang back to his cauldron, his head ducked as he resumed scrubbing. The tousled locks of his hair fell over his face, hiding his scarred forehead, and the magic that emanated from him had curled up on itself. Only a subdued thrum remained, vibrating through Severus's bones. He kept his distance, waiting for Harry's response.

"They didn't do anything to me," Harry said. "No one did. I don't like to be touched, that's all."

Severus hummed under his breath, the vibration through his lips at the same frequency as the song of Harry's magic. He took the jar of sharpshooters over to the cauldron, opening it and counting out a dozen of the dried insects. They fluttered in the breeze of his breath, floating down to dissolve in his brewing potion. "I see."

"You don't like my snake?" Harry asked, changing the subject and chasing away his frown with a splash of soapy water that landed on his lips, making him spit and splutter. He hauled the cauldron out of the sink and began drying it with one of the large, stained rags that Severus kept for the purpose. "I thought you would – they told me, some of the Aurors, about the four Houses here at Hogwarts, and about you being Head of Slytherin. I thought you would approve."

"I do not approve of your attempts to distract me, or to waste your lesson time on frivolities." Severus watched the snake uncoil from Harry's wrist, hissing at him and lowering itself down to the worktable. "Do keep your familiar under control, Mr. Potter. Familiars that wander around my workroom have a tendency of finding themselves chopped up as potions ingredients, or as experimental subjects."

Harry looked at him again with that broad, free smile – laughter in the wrinkles around his eyes, a glint in his eyes, and he was beautiful when he smiled. Severus wanted to keep all of Harry's smiles, wanted to hoard them for himself. "You are grumpy today, aren't you? What's wrong?"

Severus built up the walls around his mind, blanking his thoughts. Harry, pristine and vibrant, a debt to repay and a penance to bear – no, Severus could not endanger him. "Begin your potion, and pay careful attention to the second and fifth steps. Precision is essential."

Potter blinked at him, his smile faded and his eyes shuttered. He was beautiful, and Severus would not condemn him again – would not encourage Malfoy's interest in him, would not taint him with darkness. Albus's warning echoed through his mind, Harry's flinches and Lucius's threats. He had not saved Potter in order to damn him.

A jangle of magic across his nerves, discordant and sharp, it stung Severus and drew him in. Potter was starting to unfurl from his protective cocoon, unwrapping the layers and wards that surrounded him – yes, those wretched Muggles had done something to him. A childhood spent in their world had left Potter flinching and frightened – it was no wonder that Voldemort had been bent on destroying that world. It was no wonder that Severus had joined him in the attempt.

Severus's potion hissed, the silver-pearly fumes rising up to wreath his face. He took down the powdered moonstone, sifting it over the surface of the liquid, and the fumes changed, rainbow-bright in their shifting patterns.

"Severus?"

He did not reprimand Potter for his informality, nor did he speak to him. Severus took down a rack of vials, crystal-bright and shimmering with the protective spells layered on them, and began bottling the potion.

"Were you ... were you told that Lucius Malfoy tried to kill me? Are you upset about it?"

The ladle slipped in his hand, and a dollop of potion fell to the counter, gleaming in the light before it vaporized. "I was aware that it was a possibility, yes."

"You were his lover, then, despite what you said earlier." Potter drew nearer to Severus, abandoning his own cauldron that already bubbled with the base for the potion. "Did you care for him very much? Were you –"

"I'll thank you to refrain from prying into my private affairs, Mr. Potter." Severus bottled the last of the vials, setting it on the rack and cleaning the cauldron with a swish of his wand.

Potter's sullenness returned as he went back to his cauldron, his shoulders slumping as he bumped the vials together with a glassy clang. "They told me about it, you know. Some people don't automatically assume that I'm stupid and not worthy of knowing anything. The Aurors told me all about it ... everything about Malfoy, and the war, and everything."

"I imagine that they told you what they found expedient to tell you," Severus said. "Stir with a counterclockwise motion or the potion will be completely ineffective."

"You wouldn't have told me, I know." Harry let the stirring rod fall, clanking against the side of the cauldron before it slipped to the bottom, disappearing into the simmering potion with a faint burble. "For all your talk of trust, and the way you rescued me, you never tell me anything."

"There are some things that you should not know. Does this conversation have a point? If so, is it even remotely related to the potion that you are supposed to be brewing?"

Severus's walls were strong enough to withstand the onslaught – Potter, with all his disarming charm and seductive magic, he was his father's son. He was an arrogant brat. He was nothing, absolutely nothing to Severus.

Severus took down a clean cauldron and began a new potion, gathering pixie wings and feather-fern flowers from the cupboard. He glanced over to check Potter's progress, watching him try to Summon the fallen stirring rod from the potion, and sighed. He'd brew a forgetfulness potion for himself at this rate, before the lessons with Potter were over.

"Using magic in the close vicinity of a potion while brewing it will only render it unusable, Mr. Potter. The vibrations of the natural ingredients and the magic added in the brewing process can be disrupted and ..."

Potter cursed when his newest attempt at the potion was Banished. "What kind of teacher are you?"

"Not the kind who is willing to pander to you merely because you are a celebrity, or because you were raised by ignorant Muggles, or because you have been abused. Begin again," Severus said. He dropped the last tidbit into conversation, waiting for Potter's response, and he watched the muscles in his face twitch, the hands at his sides clenching into fists.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Potter said.

"Don't assume that I am stupid, Mr. Potter. I've seen the way that you flinch at my touch, the efforts that you put to keep space between you and everyone else. If those Muggles didn't abuse you, then I'll be damned as a fool and a piss-poor Head of Slytherin – I know what abuse looks like."

Potter's magic flared, a crackling halo visible around him – it whirled around him, leaving him disheveled and breathless. Before Severus reminded him of the need to control his power, he took a deep breath and reined it in, running a hand through his hair, straightening it and glaring through his fringe at Severus. "I don't like to be touched, that's all. It's none of your business."

"Harry ..."

Here was the chance to win the golden boy, here was the chance to capture Potter's trust for good, to end these verbal dances and evasions. Severus dropped his ladle on the table, his hands shaking with the power that echoed through the room. "Harry, please. Let it be my business, too – let me help you. You don't have to be afraid anymore, you're well away from those Muggles now."

Potter seemed to crack, faltering before Severus's conviction. He broke eye contact, looking down and scuffing his feet on the floor. The whisper-hiss of his Muggle shoes against the stone rang through the classroom, a counterpoint to his thoughts and an echo of the pulse that burned through Severus. They were close enough to touch, close enough for Potter's magic to kindle a fire in him, to light his nerves and life with splendor.

"I wish ... I wish I'd never been sent to live with the Dursleys," Harry said.

Severus stepped toward him, pulling Potter towards the precipice of trust. "I wish that for you, too."

Harry looked up at him, his green eyes wide, and took a step away from him and back towards his cauldron. He shook his head, and the aura around him flared again.

Severus only had the time to duck as he put all of the goose-down feathers into his potion, letting them explode in a frothy white handful over the cauldron. The liquid seized up, bubbling and sending hot droplets flying up into Potter's face. Severus cast a ward over the cauldron and jerked him out of harm's way.

Severus's hands sizzled at the contact and were empty a second later, Potter jerking away from him and glaring at him. "You're a bastard, you don't tell me anything, you aren't even remotely concerned over the fact that I was almost killed, and you want me to trust you?

"I know, Snape. I know all about it – how my father saved your life and how you betrayed him and my mum to their death. I know about it all, and I was going to give you a chance to explain ... but no. You don't care anything for me, you don't care about anything except your potions, and you don't even want me."

Potter's magic shimmered through the room, a localized tornado sweeping potions ingredients from their shelves and fueling the flames under the two cauldrons. "You thought that I didn't know and you weren't about to tell me and you weren't about to care whether I lived or died. Were you hoping that I would die? Were you hoping to see my whole family die?"

Both cauldrons exploded, their contents splattering the wards around them, and Potter gave Severus a last look before he strode from the room and slammed the door. "I wanted to trust you."

Like penance, like forgiveness, like the breath of a kiss across his cheek – Severus let the wards fall. He was splattered by the potions, warm drops falling onto him, sizzling through his robes and marking his skin. He took the pain, absorbing it and building it into his mental walls, blocking out Potter and shutting himself into darkness.

\-------

Severus did not see Potter again for several months. His dungeons rang clean with the sound of silence, the absence of Potter's voice, the scuffling sound of his Muggle shoes against the floor, the roar and hiss of the explosions he created in his cauldrons, and the subtle whisper of his magic, the flaring of his power and the light of his anger.

Albus brought him tea thick with milk and sugar, and trays of cloying pastries that he refused to eat. He waited until the silence returned, with the sound of Albus's shuffling footsteps and Fawkes's low cries dying away, before he took his wand and took aim. Fire and ice, disintegration and putrefaction – he visited them all on the pastries. Sugar congealed and burned, the fruit fillings were charred to crisps, the scones exploded in a frenzy of mold growth. Fruit flies buzzed around the rotting pies, the mold burst open in a thousand spores, and Severus flicked a curse at the tea cake turned into a rat, sending it scurrying for cover.

With a last curse, he Banished it all. The odors lingered in the air, char and rot – he Banished them as well, taking a deep breath.

The dungeon was his – reclaimed from Potter's presence, uncontaminated by him and Severus scoured it with a host of cleaning spells. Mildewed stones were made glossy with lemony shine, the tattered tapestries that hid the dark walls were Banished into storage and the walls were scoured clean. The rat that had escaped from the tea tray was Summoned and impaled, its corpse floating out of the dungeon with the rest of the trash.

This was Severus's home, his haven and sanctuary, and he made it his own. The remnants of past professors' tenure in these rooms were gone, the mark of the years of darkness and spying were erased, and the darkness and dank gloom that clung to them was wiped away. He moved from his room to his lab, cleaning the corridor as he went.

Like a mad sorcerer's dance, this room was subject to his next purge. Bottles danced in the air, a complex waltz that had dragonsbane and wolfsbane twirling together midair, the jars of phoenix feathers and goose down clanking together as they zoomed to the correct shelf. He scoured every shelf, setting each dust mote afire – like a fevered constellation, they spun around the room, coming together in a fireball before they blinked out of existence.

Flames washed the sides of each bottle, hot and red or cold and blue according to the contents. They were wiped clean of dust and cobwebs, sterilized and returned to their places. The cauldrons were scoured, hopping from sink to sink in a clanking parade with popping bubbles. The floor and walls were purified, the grime from countless explosions and mishaps washed away with the force of Severus's spells. He was alight with his magic, his skin crackling with power and his heart pumping with it.

It all died away, the last jar settling back onto its shelf with a thud, and Severus slumped where he stood. In the silence, in the clean laboratory, he took down a set of jars. Pepper-Up for Madam Pomfrey – sliced ginger, nettles, the jewel-bright pomegranate seeds and a dozen dried salamanders. He dried out a cauldron and filled it with water from the tap. Before the cloudy sediment could precipitate to the bottom, he cleaned it up with a spell and set the water, sparkling and clear, over the flame to boil.

This was his laboratory, empty and useful. Potter's voice was not echoing against the walls, raised in anger or complaint. Potter's explosions were not ricocheting off the walls and sending hot liquid splattering close to Severus or his potions. Harry was not here, vibrant and alight with magic.

Severus took down the jar of moonstone pieces and began reducing them to powder, the mortar and pestle grinding together with screeches that echoed through his bones, jarring him from teeth to spine.

Albus came down to the lab then, his purple robes sweeping across Severus's clean floors. "My, Severus, the magical effort that you were expanding today was certainly worthwhile. I do like what you've done with the room."

The water came to a full boil, and Severus added the ginger, turning the flame down until the water started to simmer. "I'm glad it meets with your approval," he said. "I was waiting with bated breath."

"Severus," Albus said, and then he stopped, circling around the cauldron to look him in the face. "We had an argument, several years ago, and I let you persuade me to a course of action that I felt to be entirely unwise. Because of it, Harry stayed in the Muggle world, ignorant of his heritage and able to pursue his own choices ... but now, he has entered into the wizarding world, and because of his training with the Aurors, he has enough knowledge of magic to make an informed decision.

"I let you interfere once, and you owe me for that favor. I'm calling it in now – you must not interfere with Harry's decision this time."

The silver blade of his knife rose and fell as Severus diced the nettles, slicing them into thin sections. The sap stained his fingers sepia-brown, spreading up his hands and settling in vague, abstract blotches over his skin. "I paid that debt in full when I came to teach here at your bidding. I will agree to do nothing but what is best for Harry Potter," Severus said. "I've never acted against his welfare, and you know that."

"I've allowed you to have this close association with him, knowing that it put him in danger – knowing that it made him a target for some of your past associates," Albus said, and Severus filled his ears with the silence that echoed through his chambers. He filled his heart with the aching absence of Harry and let the bitterness seep from his heart through his veins, tingling through his blood.

"I've allowed him to trust you," Albus said, "despite your history and your dark, destructive tendencies. Because I know that you have his best interests in mind, and because I know that you value his innocence, I've allowed all of this. I will not allow you to interfere with his destiny."

"A screeching harridan with bug-eyed glasses and a penchant for gauzy shawls and two Knut jewelry does not dictate destiny," Severus said. "You are not the guardian of Harry Potter's destiny, and I won't let you blinker him into making a decision that you feel is best – I've suffered enough for that treatment to know better. If he comes to me ..."

Severus's potion hissed, and he turned back to it, turning the flame lower and ignoring the pang that shot through his chest. "If he comes to me, I will act as I see best, without reference to your dictates, which are based on irrational twaddle and misty uncertainties. Is that clear?"

"After I have protected you, rescued you from your bad decisions and set you on the path of the light, you dare to say such things to me? You are in no position to dictate anything to me, Severus Snape. You will agree to my terms, or I will turn you in to the Ministry as a Death Eater. They'll not be pleased to hear that you've corrupted Harry."

"No one has corrupted me," Harry said, slipping in through the half-open door. He was clad in red Auror robes, the color echoed in the flush of his cheeks. "I can't believe that you talk about me behind my back like this – these issues concern me, too. They concern me most of all and I need –"

"We all have to make sacrifices," Albus said. He raised a hand and Silenced Severus with a nonverbal spell. "The world needs you to do this, Harry – it's been your destiny since before you were born. You owe the Ministry as much, in return for the training that they've given you, the recovery that they allowed you to make from the bad start in life that the Muggles gave you."

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Harry asked. "You left me with them, after all. You left me there when I was a baby and again when I was eleven – you could have brought me my Hogwarts letter and rescued me from them, and you never did. You never cared until you could make use of me."

"If you were eavesdropping," Albus said, "then you know that it was Severus who wanted you to be left with the Dursleys. He insisted that we not interfere with your decisions."

"That is not true." Rage boiled over in Severus, bubbling out of his skin in heat waves. "I argued that you not taint him with that –"

"I know," Harry said. He walked over to Severus, putting a hand on his shoulder and grounding him. Severus's magic arced and fizzled, a spectacular lightstorm that surrounded the two of them for an instant before fading away. "Control, remember? I know that you would never hurt me."

Light and dark blended together, enough to blind Severus, and he shook his head, clearing away the spots that filled his vision. "You don't know that ... you can't know that."

"I do know it." Harry smiled up at him, and Severus was undone by his trust.

He reached for Harry, his fingers hovering in the air over Harry's shoulder, and then Harry took his hand, holding it between both of his own. Magic sang between them, thick between their hands, joining their bodies, and Severus caught his breath.

"I'm sorry about before," Harry said, "about what I said to you. It was ... I was wrong. I shouldn't have ..."

"You were right." Severus drew back from Harry, wrapping darkness around himself like a cloak. "I did condemn your parents to death – I told Lord Voldemort of the Prophecy and told him of your mother's pregnancy. I betrayed you, don't sugarcoat it or brush it away."

"Since I've met you, you've been the only one in this world who hasn't betrayed me," Harry said. He looked over at Albus, his eyes dark as he stepped closer to Severus. "I haven't liked you, always, but I trust you."

Albus approached them, hands outstretched, his aura thrumming with power. Here was light enough to illuminate the room, enough to show each corner, each missing cobweb and each absent speck of dust. Severus's potion burbled in its cauldron, reacting to the magic that spilled out from Albus. "Harry, I've done nothing to harm you. I only want what is best for you and your destiny –"

"And all of the world," Harry said. "You betrayed me when you kept me away from Severus – I heard all about it from Kingsley. He told me about it, told me about you encouraging him to tell me that Severus betrayed my parents, and about your suggestion that I'd do better with another potions tutor."

"Albus, you didn't ..."

"Harry, how can you believe him? Don't you know what he is, who he is, what he has done? He betrayed your parents, destroyed your childhood – will you sacrifice your destiny to him?"

Severus grabbed Harry's hands, squeezing them between his own. "Don't confuse the issue, Albus. The past has nothing to do with it and there's no need for you to bring it up. I've atoned for that mistake – I did my penance when I kept you from corrupting him with your dark rituals and soul-tainting magic when he was a boy."

Harry glowed, his power pushing out of him and pushing Albus away. "Stop trying to separate us," he said. "I won't stand for it."

Albus ceded the battle, nodding to Severus and Harry as he left. He paused in the doorway. "Remember your destiny, Harry. Remember your past, Severus – could you bear to have the man who enslaved you return and rule over us all? Could you bear to submit to him again?"

The silence echoed after him, his light withdrawn and leaving the room dim, and then Harry smiled at Severus with a lopsided quirk of his lips.

"Kingsley told me about how you were looking after me," he said, hoisting himself up onto one of the high worktables. His feet dangled, hitting against the drawers. "How you asked after my training and insisted that you be the one to provide potions for me. Thank you for that, by the way – they worked wonders."

"You hardly need my help now that you're accustomed to the way things work here," Severus said. He could not hold Harry to him with falseness or lies, could not bind up that golden, shining trust with darkness.

Harry kicked the table, picking up the jar of nettles and examining it. He turned it around in his hand, the dried nettles clinking against the glass as they fell against the walls of the jar. "I do need your help. I know it's hardly fair to ask you," he said, "but I don't know who else to ask."

Standing against Harry, whose knees jabbed into Severus's thighs, Severus looked into his eyes. They were of a height like this, Harry looking at him without blinking or flinching away. "Ask," Severus said.

"They ... they want me to kill Lucius Malfoy." Harry broke the connection between them, looking down at his lap. He fiddled with his hands, adjusting the cuffs on his sleeves and worrying a loose thread from his fraying hem. "I don't think I can do it."

Lucius, with his smile and his body and his perfect arse – Lucius, with the aura of darkness that clung to him, the plots and failed attempt to kill Harry – Severus's hands twitched, but he made no attempt to reach out and touch Harry again. "Why?"

Studying his hands, Harry began picking at a hangnail and refused to meet Severus's gaze. "They – there have been signs that Voldemort is returning with Malfoy's help. Albus is convinced that I'm the only one who can kill him, and he's persuaded the Ministry that I have to do it before he has a chance to make another set of Horcruxes."

"He hasn't enough soul left to split it," Severus said. "He can't make another Horcrux, let alone another set of them."

Harry was bright and bold as his father, as his mother – he was a Gryffindor, to be certain, and yet he hesitated at the task. "I don't think that I can kill anyone," he said. "I know ... they told me that I killed Voldemort, but I don't, I didn't –"

"I know." Severus reached out and tilted Harry's chin up, looking into his eyes. "We all die, every moment of every day."

Harry leaned back, pulling his chin away from Severus's fingers. "I don't want to hear the rationalizations of a Death Eater."

"You've learned a new word, I see."

Harry flushed, looking down again. "I'm sorry – I didn't mean that. I didn't mean to call you that, Severus."

Severus caught his hands, holding him before he could flee. "I have killed, and you know it. I have killed more men than you know, and they died around me in a field littered with corpses. I condemned your parents to death, and you would have died too, except for –"

"The Prophecy," Harry said. "I know you don't believe in it, but I ... I don't know. What if it is true?"

"We make choices and decide our own destiny, Harry. I chose to do the things that I have done – the bad as well as the good. Voldemort has made his own choices and set his own fate. So has Lucius, so have we all. Ignore the Prophecy. It's only as true as you make it come true."

Harry leaned forward again, freeing his hands to put them on Severus's jaw, tilting his chin and studying his face from all angles. "How'd you get to be so wise?"

"I was born that way," Severus said, and he caught his lip between his teeth to stop from smiling when Harry coughed on his half-formed laughter, spluttering and smiling.

"You were," Harry said. He smiled, leaning closer to Severus, lips poised as if for a kiss. "I'm not afraid anymore."

Severus hesitated before asking the question, but he looked at Harry's eyes, bright with laughter, and asked in a low, careful tone of voice, "What changed?"

"I'm not some hothouse flower," Harry said. "I know that you think they abused me – the Dursleys, I mean – and I suppose they did, in a way. They never touched me, and I was just ... they were always touching Dudley, hugging him and so on, and they never touched me.

"After awhile, I was afraid to let it happen – afraid to let them hug me and love me. Uncle Vernon tried to cuff me on the back of the head once, and he was zapped by some kind of electric shock – ever since then, I haven't wanted anyone to touch me. I wasn't sure that they wouldn't be hurt."

"Harry ..."

"I didn't understand about the magic. I didn't understand anything until you brought me into this world, until you explained everything to me." He took Severus's face in his hands, holding it steady. Like the whisper of a ghost, like the breath of a flower, Harry kissed him on the cheek. It was the brush of skin against skin, nothing magical at all – and yet Severus's skin crackled with the force of the kiss.

"I can touch people without hurting them now," Harry said, "now that you've taught me how to control my magic – you and the Aurors and everybody who's been tutoring me. I should have learned a long time ago."

"You have a lot of years to make up for then," Severus said, dropping his shields enough to tease him, and Harry winked, leaning into his touch.

Harry Potter, healthy and impudent in his arms, reaching out to touch him – Severus leaned closer, looking into his eyes. The brush of mind against mind was like a feather floating down to the water, like sunlight trapped in the surface of a still lake.

Joy, unfiltered and glowing – a fat man who yelled – the sinuous coils of a snake, warm pressure around his arm, hissing – darkness and spiders – a teacup rattling, an uncontrolled outburst of magic – friends, a warm room, alcohol passed around in a flask while they laughed – Harry jerked in Severus's arms, pushing him away. "What was that?"

Severus fell in deeper, past the sun-shot and sparkling surface to the deep waters beneath. He wove the web of his thoughts into a pointed spear, slipping through Harry's mind with ease. "What was what?"

Cold arms wrapped around knobby knees, flashes of green light, waking from a nightmare – another exam failed, the teacher's curvy penmanship displayed to his family, their satisfaction – weeding in the garden, back bent and arms sore from repetition and sweat – the snake, its hissing intelligible now, curling around Harry's arm and promising, promising –

"Stop that."

Harry jerked and shuddered, shoving Severus out of his mind. "What are you doing? Why are you doing that to me?"

"Harry –" Severus stretched a hand out to him, letting it hang between them. His heartbeat ringing in his ears, the borrowed memory of Harry – his Harry – speaking to a snake flashing through his mind, he tried and discarded trickery after trickery before he spoke. "Harry, it's nothing. It's just a mental connection between the two of us – I had to know that you weren't going to toy with me and then reject me."

Harry fell under his spell then, taking his hand and pressing a kiss to each finger. "I would never do that to you."

"I haven't saved you for this," Severus said.

"I know. This is my choice – we all choose our own destiny, you said."

He smiled, and Severus sealed the grin on his face with a kiss. Falling into Harry's embrace was falling into warmth, into sunlight. He rested his chin on Harry's shoulder and held him, rocking him to the rhythm of his heartbeat. "We all choose our own destiny."


	5. Chapter 5

Harry came to Severus at last, shedding his Auror robes and his boots and socks as he strode through the laboratory. It had been weeks since Severus had since him last, had rocked him to sleep against the destiny that faced him – it had been too long, and Severus frowned at him. "You've been gone," he said. "You kissed me and left me, just as you said you wouldn't."

There was no room in the obvious – no room for Harry to slide away or twist the truth. "I've finished my training," he said. "I'm free."

"Free of what?" Severus asked. He let his ladle droop down into the potion and then he let go of it, the metal handle sliding around the rim of the cauldron with a screech.

Potter hopped from foot to foot, his bare skin smacking against the stone floor, grinning at Severus as he unbuttoned his shirtsleeves. "Free from reasons not to do this," he said. "You're not my teacher anymore."

He leaned up to kiss Severus, and their lips met – soft and salty-sweet, Harry tasted like tea and toast, warm and comforting. It was only a brush of lips, it was a promise of more, it was a shock of magic running down Severus's spine and thrilling through his bones.

Harry fit into Severus's heartbeat as if he had always been there. This was light, this was purity, this was the redemption for which he had striven – completing him, heartbeat and breath, blood and flesh and soul. Severus took a deep breath, swallowing hard.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

Harry reached for Severus without hesitating, opening his mind for him. "I don't – I know that it took me awhile to learn how to touch, but I ... I did want to touch you, to stop flinching away from you all the time. You haven't gotten tired of waiting for me?"

"No, I haven't."

Harry kissed him again and then drew back, watching him. He traced a spiky pattern on Severus's cheek, a jagged fingernail scraping against his skin. "You and Malfoy –"

"Yes." Severus pressed his nose into Harry's cheekbone, the great ungainly bump of it disappearing between them. His hair swung forward and hid his face, his long sleeves hid the blemish on his forearm, and there was no ugliness, no sin that Severus would not hide for Harry.

"Tell me what you want," he said.

Magic flowed between them, overloading Severus's senses. He closed his eyes, not needing to see, and it sparkled around him, filtered through the darkness of his eyelids. Harry squirmed in his embrace, and the swirls of power vibrated around him, following his smallest motion.

He didn't offer anything to Severus, didn't ask for anything, didn't take – Severus took, and was greedy for more. He took Harry's lips, bruising them with a kiss. He took Harry's face, marking every inch of it with his tongue and lips. "You'll be mine," he said, and Harry shuddered at his words.

"Your voice ..."

"I know, the reason why all of your cauldrons exploded?" Severus said, and he smiled against Harry's cheekbone when he gave a guilty twitch. "Legilimency, remember?"

"You knew all along?"

Severus bent Harry's neck back as he loomed over him for a kiss, sucking the sugar from his lips. "You take your tea too sweet," he said. "You'll rot all your teeth."

"And then I'll look like you, I suppose."

Severus sought the soft spots between his ribs, the ticklish vertebra – he skimmed the surface of Harry's mind and found every weakness, every advantage, and used them to their fullest. Harry writhed under his touch, breathless and wasting his short gasps of air on stammering useless protests.

"You'll never look like me," Severus said when he released Harry, sending him spinning away. He rubbed the sleeve that covered the Mark on his forearm, and spared a last glance for the cauldron that simmered with an over-boiled potion. "Don't leave your clothing strewn about my classroom – well, come along, then."

Harry scurried after him, his unbuttoned shirt billowing out behind him, his arms full of his robes and boots. His hair was jumping in the breeze that he made with his passage – overlong, it bobbed down to cover his jagged scar, hiding his thick eyebrows and shining eyes. Severus took a sharp turn into his rooms, snapping the portrait shut behind Harry.

"You're certain?"

Harry shrugged out of his shirt, his pale hands going down to unfasten his trousers. "I'm sure that you're wearing too many clothes for this," he said.

He was impudent and brash, he was his father's son, he was young enough to be Severus's son – a dozen reasons not to bed him, the dozen reasons that had made Severus send him away last time, the dozen reasons not to risk it. He stole Harry's breath with a kiss, drinking in the sweet of tea and the salt of buttered toast from his mouth.

Severus let Harry fumble with his buttons, pulling his robes down off his shoulders, as he drank in the reasons to forget, the reasons to transgress and sin. Each of them was sweet, as warm as Harry's breath and as soft.

They rushed to the bed, Severus's clothing shed as they went, kisses stolen as they stumbled. He pressed Harry flat against the mattress and covered him with his body. Their breastbones thudded together with a painful jar as Severus lowered himself over Harry. Their cocks slid together, Harry arching up against Severus.

"I want you to show me everything," he said, breaking away from their kiss to breathe. His breath rasped against Severus's cheek, uneven and loud. His lips were wet and shining with Severus's kisses, and his eyes fluttered shut. "Show me everything."

Severus left fingerprints on his ribs, crescent marks from sharp nails on his hipbones, and purpling bruises on his neck. He moved down to kneel between Harry's legs, spreading them apart and leaning over to press a kiss to each nipple. "You trust me," he said, his mouth pressed to Harry's heartbeat, his words muffled.

A quick spell, and his fingers were slick with lubricant – he grasped Harry's cock and began stroking it, dipping into his mind to find the perfect rhythm. "I trust you," Harry said, "oh ... more ... only you."

Severus bit his collarbone, reaching down to fondle his balls and tease at his opening. He ran a slick finger around the hole and kissed Harry, devouring his mouth as he finger-fucked him. "More," Harry said, and he bit Severus's lower lip, drawing it into his mouth and sucking on it.

Severus obliged, adding a second finger and sliding them deeper into Harry. He pinned Harry to the bed with his other hand, pushing down on his shoulder when he would have writhed up into Severus's touch. He spread Harry's legs wider as he angled his fingers, reaching for his prostate – garbled declarations of love spilled from Harry's lips, and Severus leaned up and caught them in his own mouth, silencing him.

Harry thrust down on Severus's fingers, impaling himself, and became bold with his lust, his hands wandering across Severus's back and chest, tracing broad swipes like angel-wings on his shoulders and pinching his nipples. He broke the kiss to blow into Severus's ear, catching his earlobe between his teeth. "Wanted this for so long," he said. "Wanted – want to feel you inside me. Fuck me, Severus, please fuck me."

His skin tasted of salt and the metallic aftertaste of sweat – Severus savored the taste, licking his way down from Harry's jaw to his collarbone and then further down to taste each peaked nipple. Hooking Harry's ankles over his shoulders, Severus positioned himself and slid in with one slow thrust, kissing away Harry's gasps.

Harry didn't last long, spilling his release between them after Severus hit his prostate, and he shuddered, his muscles clenching around Severus's cock. He lay lax and beautiful as Severus thrust into him, rushing to his own climax. He was hot and tight, sheathing Severus perfectly, reaching up to claim Severus's lips with shallow, biting kisses.

His lower lip was caught between Harry's teeth, and the pinch of pain was enough to send Severus over the edge, tumbling down into bliss in Harry.

"That was incredible," Harry said. "Is it always ... like that?"

Severus shushed him and caught him in a cage of his arms, holding him until the flutter of his heartbeat slowed to its normal rhythm. "It gets better," he said, and let himself drift off to sleep, sweaty and sated, pressing a last kiss to Harry's temple.

He woke to find Harry staring at him, tracing the outline of his cock and balls. Twitching, Severus captured Harry's hand and closed his fingers around a kiss pressed in the center of his palm. "What?"

"I – you know they want me to kill Lucius Malfoy," Potter said. "He's – Dumbledore thinks that he's hosting the last fragment of Voldemort's soul in his own body, like a soul parasite, and that I'm the only one who can kill him."

"Romantic pillow talk, Potter," Severus said. "I was enjoying the brief period of post-coital bliss before you brought that delightful topic up."

There was a Mark on Severus's arm, a mask and cloak in his closet that were made from the death of innocents – there was a fate that had set this all in motion. He let Harry kiss him, he let Harry steal his breath and distract him with a caress sweeping from his shoulder to his hipbone, lingering down on his inner thigh.

"Can I make it up to you?" Harry marked Severus's neck with sharp love-bites, a chain above his collarbone like an uneven necklace.

Severus pulled Harry closer to him, luxuriating in his warmth – the steady thump of his heartbeat, the ragged catch of his breath. "Possibly," he said.

"Can I fuck you?" Harry asked. He pulled back from Severus, looking him in the eye, his gaze direct and unfaltering.

He thrummed with magic, the strands of his power half-entwined with Severus's from their earlier coupling. It was as clean and deep as the water in the stream that ran undisturbed through the Forbidden Forest, and as tempting, as uncertain. Severus sucked in a breath as Harry bent down to suck on his nipples, working them into taut peaks, and with the last shreds of his self-control fading at the onslaught, he gave into the temptation.

"Yes," he said.

"Really?"

"You wanted me to show you everything, did you not?" Severus let Harry cling to him, let him explore his body inch by inch, breath by breath. With the shadow of Lucius hanging over him and lending him desperation, Harry was fierce in his lovemaking, undaunted in his learning.

Severus let Harry set the pace, let him kiss and suck and bite, let him stroke Severus's cock to full hardness. Harry was already throbbing against him, his cock pressed into Severus's hipbone and wet with pre-come. He let Harry set the pace, and then he flipped him over, sitting on his thighs and pinning him to the bed.

"Hey, you ..."

Tugging down on Harry's balls, Severus leaned forward to nip his ear. "You will have to last considerably longer this time," he said, and Harry blushed, opening his mouth to protest.

He squirmed when Severus fumbled in the bedside drawer for a cock ring. "Did you – did you do this with Malfoy?"

"I would prefer to have only one of you in my bed at a time, if you please," Severus said, adjusting the cock ring on Harry. "The mention of past lovers during sex is generally considered to be off-putting, something that you should keep in mind for your future encounters."

"Future encounters with you, I hope you mean." Harry reached up to frame Severus's face with his hands, pulling him down until their faces were inches apart. "I'm yours, remember? And that makes you mine, too."

Severus frotted against him, rubbing their cocks together and closing his eyes to lose himself in the sensation – Harry against him, Harry's hard cock, soft skin, sweet gasps. Severus bit his lip to rein in the overload of sensations and retrieved the lubricant from the bedside table, handing it to Harry. "Then make me yours," he said. "You remember the general way to go about it, I hope."

"I'm not about to forget that so quickly," Harry said. He grinned against Severus's collarbone, his lips a crescent pressed into Severus's skin.

"If only you'd been half so attentive to the other things that I tried to teach you."

"Perhaps if you'd thought to reward me with sex for every lesson well-learned ..."

"You would still be a virgin in that case, Potter." Severus softened the words with a kiss, spreading his legs open for Harry. "You were a terrible student at Potions."

"If you hadn't always distracted me ... this smells better than the stuff you used before." Harry sniffed the lubricant, the thick gel dripping from his fingers as he poked his tongue out and tasted the air, hesitating.

"My personal recipe for lubricant," Severus said. "It is safe for human consumption, should you care to try it, and it is not my fault that you are easily distracted." He took Harry's hand and guided it to his arse, spreading his legs wider and helping Harry to fuck him with his fingers.

Harry leaned forward to kiss him, driving his fingers further into Severus. The almost-pressure, almost-fullness of it was maddening, and Severus thrust back down against Harry, needing more. He scooped up a dollop of lube from the jar, adding it to Harry's free fingers and forcing them into himself. "More," Severus demanded, his breath coming in short spurts.

He saw stars behind his eyelids when Harry slicked his cock with lube and slid into his loosened passage, the sparks of their entwined magic brilliant between them. He let Harry fuck him, the shallow thrusts giving way to deeper, less tentative ones as Harry bit his lip on a moan. He slid all the way into Severus, the hard circle of the cock ring coming with the soft slap of Harry's balls against his arse.

"You feel so good," Harry said, and Severus lost himself in the moment. Their magic combined with their sweat, a network that overlaid their skin, binding their bodies together. Harry leaned closer to nip at his neck, a frisson of pain blending with the pleasure, sharpening it, and Severus moaned as he bucked up into the touch.

Harry's thrusts were erratic, unpracticed – he slipped out of Severus and fumbled to thrust into him again, and at last Severus flipped them over again, holding Harry to the bed with a hand on each shoulder. He shifted so that Harry's cock hit his prostate, and began to ride him, reaching down to stroke his own cock.

Skin gleaming with sweat, hair spectacularly disheveled, mouth open with lips reddened from kissing, Potter was a sight to behold. He was hard and thick in Severus, his cock in all the right places, and Severus bit down on his lip, moving faster.

"Severus ... oh, please, more, you feel good," Harry said, hands fisted in the sheets. "Fuck, need you so much, let me come ... please, oh please let me."

"You'll come when I tell you to come and not a second sooner." Severus reached down to twist Harry's nipples, pinching them hard and then rolling them between his fingers. He sank down to impale himself fully on Harry's cock, resting there for a moment, and let his cock bounce free, reaching behind him with his other hand to spread Harry's legs apart.

He fumbled in the bedside drawer for a dildo, pulling one out and putting it to Harry's lips. "Suck."

Harry obeyed, stretching his lips wide around the dildo, closing his eyes as he worked at relaxing his throat. Severus was relentless, pressing the dildo down past his gag reflex and stroking his throat to relax it. "Trust me, Harry, you want this to be lubricated. Open up ... take it in deep, that's right. Perfect."

Harry's cock twitched inside Severus, and he smirked down at him. "That's right, you love to hear my voice, don't you? Listen to me, Harry."

Severus took the dildo, glistening with saliva, from Harry's mouth, and reached behind him to position it at his entrance, teasing him by moving the dildo in circles around it. "You like that, don't you? You like to be fucked, you want to feel this moving inside you. Tell me, Harry."

"Fuck, yes. Please, oh fuck." Harry spread his legs wider as Severus thrust the dildo into him, activating the charm with a muttered password, and the dildo started to vibrate, thrusting on its own volition. Harry threw his head back, and Severus started to ride him again, setting a maddening slow pace.

"I'm going to keep you there on the edge, Harry," he said, stroking his cock and dipping into Harry's mind to feel his pleasure magnified two-fold. Fucking and being fucked, Harry was incoherent with the sensations that washed through him, and Severus clenched his muscles around him to produce another spate of babbling.

"Right on the edge, Harry, that's right. I can do this for hours, ride you and feel your lovely thick cock inside of me, drive you mad with pleasure while you fuck me. I'll let you come at last, and then I'm going to come too. I'll come all over you, stain your pretty skin and I'll make you clean it up."

Severus paused for breath, poised above Harry and teasing the head of his cock with deft fingers before sinking down onto him again. "I'll wipe it off you and make you suck it off my finger, make you eat my come – and then I'll make you eat your come, make you eat it out from inside me. Would you like that, Harry?"

"Please ... please, Severus, fuck, let me come now, I need it, please. Let me come, I'll do anything, I love you, oh fuck, please."

"You should never make promises to a Slytherin in bed, Harry. I have to teach you better control than that, don't I? You'll wait as long as I want you to wait and you'll thank me for it when I let you come."

Harry was pinned to the bed again by Severus's hands planted on his chest and keeping him from thrusting up. Severus set the rhythm, slow and smooth thrusts that were just enough to tantalize, never enough to satisfy. Harry whimpered and begged, reaching up to rake his fingernails along Severus's thighs. He raised parallel red welts that ended in nothing, lines that led to nowhere, and Severus hissed at the spike of pain.

He captured Harry's hands, binding them together with a cloth blindfold pulled out from the drawer, and tied the end of the cloth to the headboard. Harry whimpered, struggling against the restraint and struggling to thrust up into Severus. An unending litany of "please" spilled from his mouth, and Severus took pity on him.

He grabbed his wand and Banished the cock ring just as he leaned down to kiss Harry. Their lips were crushed together for an instant, and then Severus braced himself on the headboard, thrusting faster. Harry's cock hit his prostate with each thrust, and then Harry came, his face twisted with the pleasure of his release, his lips open with Severus's name.

Severus was on the edge of coming, and he pulled off Harry, scrambling up to thrust his cock in Harry's mouth. He reached back to pull the dildo from Harry, settling it into himself and reactivating the charm. Still warm from Harry's body, it fucked him as he fucked Harry's mouth.

He pulled out when he came, spilling over Harry's face. It was lovely on Harry's skin, as he knew it would be – white splatters on his golden skin, on his pretty pink lips. Severus slumped onto the bed next to Harry, reaching over to smear his come into Harry's skin.

"Fuck, that was brilliant." Harry rolled over for a cuddle, and Severus put a hand on his chest to stop him.

"This, first," he said, and he fed his come to Harry, making him suck it all off his fingers. Harry frowned at the first taste, but with Severus's encouragement, he opened his mouth wide and sucked it eagerly.

"You're so hot," Harry said, coming in for a cuddle at last. "That was ... fuck, that was the best ever." He laid his head on Severus's shoulder, sprawling out over the bed and taking most of the space. Severus shoved him over, tracing lazy circles on his back and permitting the sloppy kisses that Harry planted on his collarbone.

"Severus?" Harry asked, disrupting the lazy languor.

"What is it now?"

Harry put a hand over his heart, and laid his head over that as though listening to his heartbeat, looking up at Severus. "I think ... I think I might be in love with you."

Severus kissed him to sleep, suppressing the thrill he felt at the hint of redemption offered by Harry. Forgiven by the light, loved by the light – he'd kept Harry pure, kept him safe, and yet the darkness on his soul could not be so easily erased.

"You don't know anything of love yet," he said with a last kiss to Harry's forehead. He left his lips pressed against Harry's forehead, curling around him and falling asleep with him.

\--------

Severus's cloak still hummed with the spell cast into it and bound by his tears, blood and semen – it still carried that magic, that protection. He pulled it close around himself, clutching at the comfort that he had not needed since the destruction of the Horcruxes, since knowing Harry. The cloak was enough to shield him from the dungeon cold and strengthen his resolve for the task before him.

Harry came up close behind him, and Severus whirled to face him, controlling the billow of the cloak so that the hem skimmed past Harry's outstretched fingers.

"Severus? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Are you ready to help me brew?"

"You always say I'm rubbish at potions, I don't see why you want my help."

Severus kissed away his frown, bending to murmur in his ear. "The more time I spend restocking the infirmary's supplies, the less time I have to spend in bed with you." He pinched Harry's arse, eliciting a squeal, and smirked as he Summoned a set of iron cauldrons to the worktable in a clanking, clattering parade.

"I'll have you make Skele-Gro, Madam Pomfrey needs a small batch of it made fresh every year and I've written the directions out for you."

Harry took the proffered scroll, pressing their hands together for a heartbeat. "You mean, you're actually going to give me directions? Or do you mean that you're just going to watch me blow things up again?"

"You can hardly expect me to take the blame for your talent in creating disasters," Severus said. He took Harry's hands, unrolling the scroll. "I've tried to write this out clearly enough that even you will be able to follow it."

"Mmm," Harry said, staring at Severus's hands. "I love your handwriting."

"Focus, Potter." Severus pushed him toward the worktable. The ingredients were laid out in order, in precise rows with the measurement written on a scrap of parchment that Severus had attached to the lid. "I've tried to simplify things for you," he said. "It will hardly be a timesaver if you only create explosions and waste ingredients."

Harry leaned in for a kiss. "Is this a Potion Master's definition of romantic? I like it, Severus. It's very sweet."

Their lips brushed for a second before Severus jumped backwards, capturing Harry's wandering hands and holding them still. "No kissing in the laboratory."

"Not that romantic, then? Have you never fantasized about taking me here, fucking me over one of your lab benches? You could spread me out on one of them, naked and waiting for you, bound in place while you brew that lube."

He leaned in to kiss Severus on the neck, going straight for the spot near the hollow of his throat that always made him shudder. "Not appealing at all, is it? You'd rather just brew your smelly potions and then throw me onto your bed and have your wicked way with me there."

"I do not have a wicked way," Severus said, his mouth turned down in prim corners, and then he relented. "Do you promise to behave and brew your potion perfectly on the first attempt if I satisfy your baser urges first?"

Harry moved to a clean worktable and hopped up onto it, unfastening his robes. "You are quite the closet romantic, aren't you? Willing to satisfy my 'baser urges' if I brew a potion for you ... Severus, that's too sweet. You really shouldn't have."

Severus unfastened his cloak, flinging it out of Harry's reach, and opened his robes below the waist. He pushed the fabric aside and unbuttoned his trousers with one hand as he reached for Harry with the other.

"I make an effort to spend more time with you, and you balk at the idea of assisting me. I put your carnal urges above my own work, my own priorities and duties, and you mock me for a lack of romance. I won't give you candlelight and roses, Potter. If you had half a brain, you'd have realized that a long time ago."

"I don't expect anything more than hot, steamy sex – which you provide on a regular basis anyway, but even more so when you're riled up about something – and of course, your undying devotion."

Potter grinned, unfastening his trousers and wriggling out of them. He wore no pants underneath, and his cock bobbed against his pale stomach as he hoisted himself back up on the table. "Besides," he said, "you like me when I'm impudent."

Severus stepped between his legs, spreading them further apart, and reached up to kiss him. He put his hands on Harry's knees, pressing the ticklish spot just underneath, and moved up his legs to his thighs, pausing there.

Harry wriggled against him, but Severus made him wait, shifting back so that his cock was no longer pressed against Harry's leg.

"Would you like me to tie you to this table, then? You'd wait for me, hard and needy the entire time I was brewing, but nothing would touch you except the cold air of the dungeons, blowing over your bare skin."

Harry sucked two fingers into his mouth, wetting them and then lowering them to rub his nipples. The saliva gleamed on his skin, and he licked his lips, staring at Severus with heavy-lidded eyes. "You want me that way too, don't you? You're harder just thinking about it."

"Do you know how long it takes to brew that potion? Two hours," Severus said, Summoning a jar of it with a nonverbal spell and slicking his fingers with it. "It takes my complete concentration. I wouldn't be able to leave it, no matter how you moaned.

"I'd bind your cock so you couldn't come, and charm a dildo to frig you up the arse while I worked. You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd feel it moving inside you, fucking you, preparing you for me."

He thrust two fingers into Harry, stretching him and swallowing his moan with a kiss. "You'd be forced to wait until I decanted the potion, leaving it to cool."

Harry thrust downwards, impaling himself further on Severus's fingers and catching his breath when Severus twisted to hit his prostate. "Yes, just like that. Oh, I'd beg you, moan until you couldn't resist me. You'd leave the potion and fuck me, sliding into me with your thick cock – oh, yes. Talk to me, Severus, I need your voice."

Severus slicked his cock with lube and slid into him, a slow and gentle thrust that had Harry begging for more. Severus leaned into him, shifting so that the rough fabric of his outer robes brushed against his nipples. Fully clothed, he fucked Harry, his hands wandering, exploring each inch of nakedness.

Shifting his weight from foot to foot, he rolled his hips and thrust deeper into Harry – still as hot and tight as he'd been the first time. Severus angled himself to hit his prostate, struggling to hold himself back when Harry moaned and clenched his muscles around him.

"I wouldn't leave the potion, I'd make you wait. You'd be ready for me when I came over at last, ready to do anything to feel my cock in you, anything to be allowed to come. You'd beg me, and I wouldn't make you wait any longer. I'd fuck you, just like this." He punctuated each sentence with another thrust, and at the last, he angled his cock to hit Harry's prostate again, leaning forward to ravage his mouth. Tongue and teeth, Harry claimed him as he fucked him.

Harry reached down to pump his cock to the rhythm of Severus's thrusts, his other hand raking gashes across Severus's shoulders with sharp nails. He threw his head back, baring his neck for Severus – he marked the fine line of it, the lovely white skin with dark bites. "More, just ... ah, there, Severus."

His muscles clenched around Severus as he came – they rippled around him, pulling out his own orgasm. Severus bit Harry's neck as he came, and he let himself fall forward to rest on his elbows, pressing Harry back into the table. Harry squirmed, dislodging Severus's elbows to take all of his weight, and clenched his muscles again to keep Severus from slipping out of him. "That was brilliant."

"Brilliant enough to make you brew a perfect potion?"

Harry kissed him, and it was warm and slow, not enough to rekindle lust but a comfortable meeting of lips and tongue, a sated and lazy kiss. "I hope you never change ... I like you just the way you are, sarcastic and wicked."

"If you're going to start on about romance again –" Severus levered himself up onto his elbows, but Harry clutched at his back, holding him there.

"No, don't – I want to talk about something else." The storm that had darkened Harry's expression these past few days returned, furrowing his brows together and turning his lips down in a scowl.

"You – do you still love Lucius Malfoy?"

"I do believe that we've had this discussion before, about not bringing up past lovers when we're in bed."

Severus slid out of Harry and spelled them clean, fastening his trousers and adjusting his robes. Shivering, Harry scrambled for his clothes, hopping from one foot to the other as he pulled them on.

"No, it's just – I don't, I don't think I could kill him if you still loved him, no matter what he's become," Harry said. "I wouldn't want to –"

"You aren't certain that you can kill him, period." Severus guided Harry back to the original worktable, rolling out the scroll with the directions and weighting it down with heavy jars. "Now brew."

"I – I'm meeting with Moody this afternoon," Harry said. "He's going to teach me the Unforgivables. Albus reckons that we don't have much time before Voldemort regains his full strength."

Harry reached for the first jar and measured out three scoops of belladonna. "Say, is this a healing potion, really? Some of these ingredients sound nasty. All of them, actually," he said, after peering at the list.

"Skele-Gro is quite toxic to the uninjured human body, but together all of the poisons combine to be beneficial under certain conditions – when the body is flooded with the hormones and signals associated with severe trauma, for example."

Harry didn't know enough about potions to contradict Severus – he shook his head, sprinkling the belladonna in as directed. "You're not going to save very much time if you stand here and watch me the whole time."

"You think that I'd trust the safety of a patient to one of your concoctions if I hadn't supervised the brewing of it? It'll save time in the future, once you've learned how to brew a few potions correctly."

Harry blew him a kiss across the simmering cauldron. "Now, that's the most romantic thing you've said yet."

"Stir counterclockwise now," Severus told him. "Unless you're illiterate, incapable of following directions, or simply stupid, you should be able to brew this potion correctly. Don't get carried away in some girlish flight of fancy about moonlight and wedding music."

Harry reached for the aconite and measured it out into the cauldron, stirring as directed without another prompt from Severus.

"I don't want you to learn the Unforgivable Curses," Severus said, laying a hand on Harry's arm when the potion was set to simmer without disturbance for a dozen minutes.

Harry's mouth was set in a crooked line, and he shrugged Severus's arm away, reaching for the stirring rod.

"Don't disturb that," Severus said. "If you can't make it through a potion without a mistake simply because of a little distraction then –"

"A little distraction? You trying to keep me from fulfilling my destiny is a little distraction?"

Severus pulled him away from the cauldron, pressing him against the cold wall. "I taught you to control your emotions better than this," he said into Harry's ear. "Take deep breaths – that's right. I am not your enemy here."

"You're setting yourself in opposition to me." Harry's chin jutted out, the sharp line of his jawbone highlighted by the flickering light from the torches. "You've no reason to stop me – you know yourself that it's my destiny to kill Voldemort, and you know that there's no one else to do it. I have to do this, Severus, so please don't try to stop me."

"Don't be ridiculous." Severus leaned his forehead against Harry's and looked down into his eyes, their noses rubbing together and their breath mingling.

"There's more than one way to kill a man and you have so many other options at your disposal. Why the Unforgivables? Why taint yourself? Your soul fractures every time you cast the Killing Curse."

"Have you used it?"

"What?"

"Have you used the Killing Curse or either of the other Unforgivables?" Harry asked. He pierced Severus with his gaze, unfaltering while he waited for a response.

Severus was dark before him, unworthy of his light. He took a deep breath. "I have, yes. But that is not to say –"

"You used them, and you're fine. You're better than fine, in fact. There's no reason why I can't do the same," Harry said. "You don't understand. Nothing else will kill Voldemort, according to Albus. The bond between us began with it, and nothing else can end it."

He worked one hand free, bringing it up to trace the lines of Severus's face. "There's no other way to keep you safe."

"I don't need a boy like you to keep me safe." Severus pushed away from Harry, stalking back to the cauldron. "Here, now. Add the Acromantula venom and stir clockwise until it turns clear."

"Don't coddle me," Harry said, unscrewing the lid to open the jar of venom. He flung the lid down on the table and it spun on its rim before clanking to a halt.

"Don't lose control of your emotions while you brew. Take a deep breath and add three drops – three normal-sized drops, you nitwit."

Harry measured them again and added them, stirring the potion until it turned clear again, scowling at Severus the entire time. "I'm not a child," he said. "I know that you've been protecting me all along, but I don't need to be protected from this. I need to do this – I need to protect you for once. I don't want to see you called back by that bastard, I don't want to give him the chance to hurt you."

"Two ounces of dragon liver, finely chopped," Severus said. When Harry made no move to obey him, he said, "Now, Potter."

Harry glared at Severus while he finished the potion, and when it had been bottled, he turned and strode for the door. He paused to reach for Severus's cloak, his fingers hovering over the dark fabric – Severus Summoned it just before he could touch it, yanking it out of his grasp.

"Hey," Harry said. "I'll need that, it's cold outside."

"Wear your own clothing." This cloak, wrought with Severus's sins and weighted down with his fate, was not for Harry to touch. "Better yet, don't go out at all. Harry ... please don't do this."

Harry stopped, his fingers on the doorknob, and turned back to look at Severus.

"The Dark Lord already knows of my treachery," Severus said. "He'll have learned of it from Lucius. He won't be able to hurt me, here at Hogwarts."

"Lucius can get through the wards –"

Severus shook his head. "Albus has changed that. I'm safe here, Harry. Don't do this for the wrong reasons."

He strode over to the door, putting his arms around Harry's shoulders and bending down to kiss him – Harry's lips tasted of salt-sweat, the faint bitter tang of potions fumes lying underneath that.

"Do you understand what you're going to do?" he asked. "Do you truly understand what it means to cast the Unforgivables, to want them with every fiber of your soul? Can you do that, when faced with the fluffy, innocent Puffskeins that Moody has doubtless procured for your lesson? Can you do that when faced with a real man?"

Harry leaned into Severus's embrace, slumping so that his forehead rested on his shoulder. "I want to keep you safe," he said, his voice muffled.

Severus tilted his head up and kissed him, a long soul-stealing kiss. "You are my safety, Harry. Knowing that you are good, that there is still something pure and innocent in this world – I need that. Let others take care of Malfoy, don't sully yourself with his murder."

"The Prophecy –"

"Is nothing but superstitious claptrap." Severus kissed Harry again, stifling his protests. "Trelawney was trying to impress Albus and get a job here, and there is nothing more to it than that."

Harry hesitated, and then smiled up at him, twining his fingers in Severus's hair. "That bit you just said, about innocence and safety?"

"Yes?"

"That, my Severus," Harry said, emphasizing the possessive with a kiss, "was really romantic."

"Slytherin persuasive tactics and nothing more. Don't turn giddy and featherbrained."

"Mmm." Harry kissed Severus's neck, slipping a leg between his thighs. "Why don't you show me more of these Slytherin persuasive tactics then – horizontally, maybe?"

He waggled his eyebrows, and Severus turned him around to give him a firm smack on the arse. "You are insatiable. To the bedroom with you, then – it appears that there's nothing else to be done with you."

Severus turned to give the vials of the poison that Harry had brewed a last look before he locked the laboratory wards and followed Harry to his bed.

\--------

Severus woke with his Mark burning his arm, pain searing from his skin down through to his bone. He pulled away from Harry, slipping out of the bed, and left him sleeping. He pushed Harry back onto the warm side of the bed and spelled one of the pillows with a heating charm for him. Harry curled around it like a snail, one arm outflung, and snored softly.

The poison was in the lab where they had left it, poison brewed by Harry's hand – Severus slipped the vials into the pocket of his cloak and froze when they clanked against his mask. The sound echoed through the room, and Severus pulled his old Death Eater mask out.

It gleamed in the faint twilight that streamed through the high windows to wreathe his laboratory in shadows, and Severus stared at the shifting patterns of light before putting it on.

He made his way through the wards, pausing on the cusp of them. The mask was cold against his face, and his cloak was warm around his shoulders. He stepped through the gates and into the unwarded space beyond, gathering his will around him and following the pull of his Mark as he Apparated.

Hooded and swathed in dark magic, Voldemort presided over his Death Eaters in a shadowy, rustling forest clearing. They stood clustered around him in a ring, several bent prostrate and writhing with the effects of the Cruciatus. As Severus watched, Voldemort turned to curse another of his servants, and then he saw Severus.

"So, Severus, you have returned to me. Lucius assured me that you were disloyal, but now you are here, though late. You are wearing my regalia as you always have. Is it possible that you were loyal all along?"

Severus fell to his knees before Voldemort, bowing his head and strengthening his shields. "My Lord, I am and always have been loyal to you. If Lucius and I disagreed in your absence, it was because I desired your guidance and wanted to take no action that might displease you."

Voldemort hit him with the Cruciatus Curse, and Severus bit his teeth together, bracing himself for the pain. It hit him and washed through him, searing his nerves and bruising his insides. Severus fought against the agony and caught his breath when he felt it diminish.

Harry was in his mind, steadying and protecting him, shielding him from the pain. I've got you. Writhe on the ground, make it realistic, however you would feel the curse normally.

Severus bit his lip and released a moan, flinging his head back and letting it bang against the hard-packed earth. What are you doing? Harry, get out of here.

And leave you to face this alone? Not a chance, Harry said. Now shut up and pay attention, we'll talk later.

Severus felt the curse through Harry's shield, as though seeing a wavery reflection of it in a lake ruffled with wind, the blurred reflection erased by a sudden cloud. He bit through his lip and spat blood on the ground, feigning the aftershocks of the curse, shaking as he pulled himself back to his knees.

Severus had time to push Harry into a corner of his mind before Voldemort attacked, battering against his shields with brute force Legilimency. Stay silent and stay still, or he will find you and kill us both.

His shields were malleable, fleeting things – like wind over sand, like currents in the water, they shifted, and he met Voldemort's attack. The Dark Lord battered through the shields, feeling them tear and yield to him, and Severus let him in, constantly reforming his shields, hiding his secrets and hiding Harry's presence.

"You are as smooth and slippery as you always were, Severus, but I am convinced of your loyalty. Do not be late in responding to my summons again."

"I will be prompt in the future, my Lord. Thank you for your mercy, Lord."

"Now," Voldemort said, turning to face each of the Death Eaters in the circle. "Now is the time to regroup and plan. I have regained a body, after all the pain and suffering that Potter inflicted on me, and I have retained my faithful servants. Be strong and persevere, my chosen ones – as Severus said, do nothing that will displease me. We will regain our former place in the world, we will have all of our past glory and more, and we will triumph over the wretched and dirty Muggles and all their ilk, but before that can come to pass, we must be careful and patient. Do nothing without my knowledge, do nothing to jeopardize my plans, and in due time, I will reward you all for your faithfulness."

Voldemort paused, his blood-red eyes shining out from under his hood. Severus was pierced by the weight of his gaze, and he shifted and clung to his shields, taking a shuddering breath when the weight was eased. Voldemort's eyes blinked, red turning to dark gray for a moment and then back again to red.

"Go now," he said. "Be ever watchful for any advantage that you may find to further our cause, and report back to me as needed. Severus, stay behind."

Severus bowed before him, pressing his forehead to the ground. "My Lord?"

"You are close to Dumbledore, my faithful Severus. Tell me, what plans has the old fool made? What has he done with Harry Potter?"

"He hid the boy away among the Muggles, my Lord, keeping him safe and ignorant. He never attended Hogwarts – he's no better than a Squib."

Harry shifted in Severus's mind, but he kept silent, sending him a wave of affection and support. Get out, Severus said to him. Get out, you aren't safe here and you're putting me in danger.

Like a soap bubble popping, Harry left his mind, and Severus shivered in the silence, drawing his cloak around him. "Dumbledore is a fool, my Lord, and he underestimates the threat you represent. He's changed the boy's hiding place and made some paltry attempts to train him, but he is in no way ready to stand against you."

"Good. That is excellent news, Severus – I am glad that you secured a place for yourself by Dumbledore's side. You will be my spy there, and tell me everything of import that he does or says. We will triumph over him this time."

Voldemort pushed his hood back, and Severus ducked his head in a bow, but not before he saw the twisted and distorted features of Lucius Malfoy. "He triumphed over us once, with old magic and that wretched spawn of his followers, but we will be the triumphant ones this time. Bring me any news you can of Potter, and he will be made to suffer for the defeat he inflicted on me."

Lucius's lips trembled as he spoke, and his hands clenched and unclenched in the fabric of his robes, his eyes flashing gray. "Severus," he said, his hand outstretched. "I – help our Lord find a new body. I have given mine for the cause, I am not strong enough, I would like to see my wife and son again, I ..."

His mouth stretched in a rictus, harsh and gaping. His lips cracked, a trickle of blood dripping down to his chin. "Severus, you may go now. Remember my instructions."

"My Lord," Severus said, and bowed his head. "If I may have leave to speak?"

Voldemort hit him with a Crucio for his presumption, and the agony sliced through him without Harry there to shield him. The pain was gone before it took hold, Severus shaking as he looked up to see Lucius. The trembling was back, the voice was familiar and not harsh, and the crushing waves of dark magic were gone. "Severus ... I loved you. Always you, never Narcissa, I loved you. I ... you left me. You left me."

The darkness that surrounded Severus, the agony that lingered after the curse – he brushed it all away and rose, walking to Lucius.

A walking dead man, to be killed with the potion brewed by Harry's own hands, to be poisoned by his former lover – "I loved you too," Severus said.

Lucius quavered in the darkness, his features blurring like molten wax, struggling to hold his shape, struggling to take Voldemort's aspect. Severus put his hands on Lucius's shoulders, steadying him, and he leaned forward to murmur in his ear. "I did love you, even if you always did love Narcissa better."

Severus slipped one hand in his pocket, pulling out the vial, and Lucius's features shifted. "What have you there, Severus?"

"A restorative draught, my Lord. You seem unwell, and I wish to strengthen you."

"Blood, Severus – I need blood, fresh from unicorns, to sustain my life. You will bring it to me ... yes, you will bring it to me ..."

Darkness engulfed Severus, the oily-slick taint of Voldemort's magic roiling through his stomach and pricking each nerve. He bit his lip, probing at the soreness there with his tongue, focusing on the pain to hold back the nausea.

His head throbbed with the onslaught, and his fingers shook as he unstoppered the vial. "This will help in the meantime, my Lord ... this will help strengthen you until I can get the unicorn's blood for you."

Voldemort writhed under Severus's touch, his muscles stiff and his tendons jerking, straining against the restraint of Severus's hand. His features melted again, Lucius winning the battle. "Don't trust ... traitor, traitor, Severus."

"Loved you," Lucius said. "I loved you, and you betrayed me, left me for Potter. You never loved me, Severus. You betrayed me."

"I did love you," Severus said, his fingers tightening on Lucius's shoulder – this was comfort for a dying man, this was no betrayal of Harry, this was nothing to roil his stomach and darken his vision. "I loved you, never doubt that. I never betrayed you."

"Don't trust him, Lord. Don't drink his potion. He will betray you. He will betray your cause. You can't trust him, Lord."

"It is a restorative draught and nothing more, Lucius." Severus tipped his head back, and Lucius's features melted, bones and skin shifting and reforming under Severus's fingers.

Lucius's mouth stretched wide, his lips cracking open, his eyes lightening to gray, and Severus did not wait for the struggle to resolve itself. He tipped the vial into Lucius's mouth, pouring the potion down his throat.

He wiped the residue from Lucius's mouth and sealed his lips with a kiss – a last kiss for his lover, a kiss for the Master he had once loved. "A draught to help you," he said. "Only to help you – never doubt my loyalty, never doubt me. Do you not feel revitalized?"

The struggle twisted Lucius's features into Voldemort's, and he gathered large swathes of dark magic to himself. "You presume too much, Severus."

Voldemort glowed with power, his aura crackling with fire and lightning. He stood straighter, his features smoothed without the struggle, his gaunt cheeks full and his eyes clear red. "I do feel better, my Severus. I am infinitely restored, but I will not thank you for it."

He hit Severus with a cutting curse, slicing open the skin over his breastbone. As Severus fell to the ground, doubled over with the pain, he strode over to him, reaching down to dip a finger in the flowing blood. He tasted it, licking his finger clean, and the power soared to a crescendo. Severus was buffeted with darkness, lost in it.

"In the future, you will not give me any potions without my consent," he said, and cast the Cruciatus at Severus.

It was stronger than before, a visible line through the air, a jet of black energy – Severus dodged it, leaping to one side, and Voldemort took aim at him again. "You dare to defy me ..."

The nimbus of dark magic crackled around him, turning inward – drawn there by the potion Harry made. Severus watched as Voldemort toppled, the poison activated by his dark curse. He writhed in its throes, clutching at his throat, his stomach, his heart, and Severus took a deep breath against the pain.

Harry had brewed the potion correctly, had made the poison that was teetering on the edge – enough to revitalize, enough to kill when activated by dark magic. Severus watched Voldemort die, felt the dark magic die to a whimper in the air around him, took a fierce joy in his dying moans.

Voldemort lay sprawled on the ground, still and silent. Neither the struggle nor death had replaced his wretched, distorted face with Lucius's. The wound in Severus's chest still bled, and he clamped a hand over it, staunching the flow with the folds of his cloak.

The cloak bled its magic into him, strengthening him and stopping the flow of blood. Darkness shifted into light, the cloak bearing the brunt of his wounds and steadying him. Woven with the hair of the Muggles he had killed, spelled with his blood and tears and come, bewitched by a mad old woman, it saved him now.

Severus stumbled over to the body, kneeling next to it. He tangled his fingers in Lucius's hair, reaching over to close his eyelids. Without the red eyes, he was almost Lucius, almost Narcissa's husband – his features were twisted and distorted, but he had kept his proud nose, his cornsilk hair, and his high, arched eyebrows. The mouth was not his own, twisted in a death rictus and the red-black blood that oozed from it was not his either. It would take a spell to change him, to restore him – Severus hesitated and then pressed a kiss to Lucius's cheek, leaving him there as he was.

Apparating to the Hogwarts gates, Severus found Harry waiting for him there, wrapped up against the chill and pacing the perimeter of the wards. He turned at the crack of Apparition, and flung himself into Severus's arms, jolting against the closing cut.

"Take care," Severus said. "I'm in no state to be manhandled."

Harry peered up at him, shuddering. He reached up to peel the mask off Severus's face, and looked at it, the metal gleaming in the moonlight. "That thing is disgusting. Oh, Severus ..."

Severus took the mask from him, tucking it back into the pocket of his cloak. He leaned on Harry for support, dizzy from the loss of blood and the overflow of magic.

"Don't you ever do that to me again." Harry clung to him, worming his way inside Severus's cloak. "You told me that you'd be safe, that you wouldn't leave the wards or answer his call, and then ... If you leave me to wake up alone like that again, I swear I'll make you suffer for it."

"Not now, Harry." Severus stopped, Harry having dislodged the last fold of the cloak, and was staring at his hand.

"Blood ... what the hell happened tonight, Severus?"

The wound had reopened without the cloak there, blood staring to flow sluggishly. "Later, Harry. Help me to the infirmary."


	6. Chapter 6

Severus woke in the infirmary, alone. There was a persistent ache in his chest, his head was throbbing, and Harry was not there. The room was full of silence and bright with sunlight, reflecting off the row of vials waiting for him.   
  
Pushing the blankets aside, Severus pushed himself up on one elbow, and Poppy and Albus hurried over, their footsteps echoing in rhythm. "Severus, whatever possessed you to do such a foolish, needless –"  
  
Severus cut him off. "Let me say, Headmaster, if you ever try to manipulate us like that again – if you ever risk Harry again – then last night will look like child's play compared to the retribution I exact."  
  
"Stop it," Poppy said. "All of this posturing and foolishness, in my infirmary! Severus, you need rest, and if you do not get it, I'll keep you here for a month without visitors. Now, take the Blood Replenishing potion first, and then the others. I'll check you over and let you go if I'm satisfied."  
  
Albus frowned at her. "Poppy, I must insist on a word with Severus first."  
  
"Nonsense – none of this nonsense will be tolerated here. He's lost almost a liter of blood and the only thing that saved him was that raggedy cloak he was using to close the wound. You let me take care of my patients, Albus, and mind your own business for now."  
  
Severus swallowed the Blood Replenishing potion, washing the prickle out of his throat with the water offered by Poppy. She held his head in place while he was wracked by shudders, the potion blending into his bloodstream and running through his body like fire. It burned as it went, expanding and filling his veins, becoming a part of him.   
  
As soon as Poppy pressed his head back onto the pillow, straightening the blankets around him and bustling over to the table for another vial, Albus came back to sit by the bed. "Poppy, I must insist – a word with Severus, now that he's had the potion. I won't be long."  
  
"Hmph," she said. "See that you aren't – his rest must not be disturbed, even for your insatiable curiosity, Albus Dumbledore. He very nearly died."  
  
Dumbledore reached over and took Severus's hand, pulling it out from under the covers and tracing the veins in the back of his hand. His touch stung, the light searing Severus's nerves – he closed his eyes, bracing himself for the interrogation. His head swam and he fought against the dizzy, swirling feel of Albus's bright aura.  
  
"Severus, what have you done? You know that you've destroyed Harry's destiny, don't you? What will become of the boy now?"  
  
"Where is he?"  
  
"I hardly see how that's –"  
  
"Where is he?" Severus asked again, pulling his hand out of Albus's grasp. The world spun around him, and he clutched at the bedpost. "Where is he?"  
  
"At the Ministry, of course. When his scar started bleeding – well, Poppy was worried and would have sent him on to St. Mungo's since she couldn't stop the blood loss, but the Aurors insisted on questioning him.   
  
"He'll have been seen by their mediwitch instead," Albus said when Severus struggled to sit upright. "No worries on that score, Severus. I know that you feel a need to protect the boy."  
  
"If you allowed anything to happen to him in my absence, Headmaster –"  
  
"You're as protective as a mother lion with her cubs, now. Are you sure you weren't meant to be sorted into Gryffindor?"  
  
Severus cracked his eyelids open to glare at Albus. His headache intensified, and he flailed, reaching out for Harry. A faint mental echo was his only answer – London was too far away.   
  
"Say what you need to say and let me have my rest," he said.  
  
"You haven't answered my questions."  
  
Albus conjured two mugs of tea, adding milk and sugar and passing one of them to Severus. "That's better, isn't it?"  
  
Severus pushed the mug away, and Albus pushed it back at him. "Now, Severus, have some tea. It makes everything seem a little brighter."  
  
"Stimulants such as caffeine are not meant to be combined with the Blood Replenishing potion, Headmaster. You'll have to find another vehicle for the delivery of whatever calming potion or truth serum you're trying to force into me."  
  
"You used to call me Albus," he said. "What's wrong, that you won't use my name now?"  
  
"You put your faith in a foolish Prophecy and risked Harry's safety for it," Severus said. "I've paid my debt to you, Headmaster. I've done my penance for my past sins. As soon as Poppy sees fit to release me, I'm leaving Hogwarts."  
  
"You can't leave in the middle of the term, Severus. Your students –"  
  
"Will do much better with a competent teacher, I am sure. Now that you no longer need to keep me chained here to spy at your bidding, you can have no objection to releasing me."  
  
"Has it been so onerous, then?" Albus asked. He shook his head, brushing aside Severus's response. "Still, I do not want you to go, Severus. We don't know that Voldemort is gone for good – he was only to have been killed by Harry, after all. You should stay here at Hogwarts, protected by the wards and by my influence, until we are certain that he is gone."  
  
Severus pulled his sleeve up, showing his forearm to Albus. "He is gone, as you see. There's no mark of my past mistakes here now – I've no need of your protection. Let me go, Dumbledore."  
  
"But the Prophecy –"  
  
"Was complete and utter nonsense, as you knew at the time. There is no such thing as destiny or any of that rot, and Trelawney is a perfectly ridiculous fraud. Stop grasping at excuses to keep me on your leash."  
  
Albus rose to leave as Poppy bustled over and he leaned down to brush his fingers across Severus's forehead. "Go in peace, then," he said. With his words, the last remnants of the Unbreakable Vow between them disappeared, the shining and tattered fragments of the bond that lingered in Severus's mind dissolved. He left the infirmary with a slow, measured pace, and Severus closed his eyes, listening to the rhythm of his footfalls.  
  
Poppy fussed over him for a while longer, pouring potions down his throat and measuring his heart rate and blood pressure before she was satisfied at last. "Take better care of yourself," she said, "and take it easy for the next few days. If you took the time to eat proper meals and exercise, the blood loss wouldn't have hit you so hard."  
  
Severus started off toward the dungeons, but when he had turned the corner and was out of Poppy's sight, he turned off into the Entrance Hall, slipping outside.   
  
Severus took the bundle that Poppy had handed him, and sat cross-legged on the grass, wavering a little as the pain in his chest intensified. He unwrapped the bundle, spreading out the black cloak and laying the silver mask on top of it.  
  
He had killed Muggles at Voldemort's command, slaughtering them and taking scalp and skull to make his Death Eater regalia. He had wrapped himself in its darkness, until it had saved him and the magic in it had turned to the light. Severus slipped a hand into his pocket, taking out his wand.  
  
Holding himself up with one hand on the ground, Severus leaned over and touched the tip of his wand to the cloak and mask, setting them on fire. He held his breath while they burned, dissolving into ashes in a bright flash. The grass wilted at the heat, but was not consumed by the flame.  
  
He rolled up his sleeve past his forearm, showing the bare skin to the sunlight. Pure white, pasty and untouched – it was his, now. All sign of his mistake was erased, and all of the darkness that had clung to him was banished.   
  
He stirred the ashes with his wand, picking them up in a whirlwind that moved out over the lake. The wind fell apart, dropping the ashes into the water – they fell in large gray clumps, in scattered white snowstorms, swirling and bunching together as they tumbled. Severus watched them until the last of the ashes had disappeared into the water, and then he levered himself up, staggering to his feet and stopping to catch his breath.   
  
He made his way down to the dungeons, pausing to lean against the wall. He put a hand on his chest, palm flat and fingers splayed. His heart throbbed, the scar tissue hot and tight under his fingers, and Severus pulled himself away from the wall, working his way down to his rooms.  
  
He rested on the bed, after the covers were stripped off and strewn on the floor like an explosion of green cuttlefish blood, like a House pride prank gone awry. Severus leaned back against the headboard, calling a house elf to pack his belongings. "Anything that belongs to Mr. Potter should also be included with my things," he told it. "Anything that belongs to Hogwarts is to be left behind, of course."  
  
When everything was packed, all of his belongings set neatly into a set of trunks and shrunk down to size, Severus felt strong enough to stand. "I will send someone to pack up my laboratory in a few days," he said. "It is not to be touched until then – no need to clean in there or disturb anything. Is that understood?"  
  
Severus slipped the shrunken trunks into his pocket and made his way back up the stairs, the helpful house elf dogging his footsteps and trying to support him. "Leave me," he said, and it obeyed, its ears wilting before it popped out of the corridor.  
  
He paused on the edge of the wards, turning to look back at Hogwarts. The gray stone of the castle shone in the sunlight, the wavery winter light reflected back onto it from the lake. It was not a refuge any longer, but it had been his home for these many years – for all the empty years he'd spent waiting for Harry. Severus scowled at the insipid sentimentality, patting his breastbone to check that his wound had not reopened.  
  
He turned away from the castle and stepped through the gates, feeling the wards fade away behind him. Steadying himself against the swirl and disorientation of magic, Severus Apparated to the Ministry, and landed hard on the pavement just outside of it.   
  
It was not hard to find Harry – the faint echo of him in Severus's mind was stronger, no longer diffuse with distance. Severus followed the pull of his mind and his magic, weaving his way through the convoluted Ministry corridors with sharp glares to frighten away the officials bustling around on their self-important business. He found the room where Harry was, the room where his magical signature was strongest, and paused just outside the door, leaning his forehead against the polished wood.  
  
Harry's voice rang out, echoing in Severus's mind as well as his ears. "Don't you dare to make any such insinuations," he was saying. "Severus Snape is as loyal as I am, and he is the one responsible for Voldemort's downfall. If you dare to question him –"  
  
He heard a low murmur, a less distinct voice, and then a loud crash. "No, I bloody well will not stay under control. You don't know what the man has sacrificed, and you will never understand. If you ...  
  
"No, of course I wasn't there. I saw enough through the connection provided by my scar to know that it was Severus who killed Voldemort, but no, I didn't see the entire confrontation. I don't see what this has to do with anything, you're being ridiculous."  
  
Severus caught his breath, leaning harder against the doorframe. It was steady, immobile support, and he held onto it as he listened in on Harry's conversation.   
  
He recognized Moody's voice, a raspy growl that was elevated over the vague mumblings of the others in the room. "You can't be sure that he isn't just playing you, a traitor to both sides and hanging on to your loyalty to save his own skin."  
  
"You don't know Severus Snape if you can even suggest such a thing," Harry said. "I trust him, and so should you. He's saved us all."  
  
"Be that as it may," Moody said, "you don't know that You-Know-Who won't return again, seeing as how he wasn't killed properly by you. You need to continue your training so that you're ready to face him, Potter. Don't falter now when we're close to defeating darkness again."  
  
"I'll continue my training as I see fit, not at your discretion," Harry said. Severus pressed his ear close against the doorframe, listening to the slight catch in Harry's voice. "You needn't badger me about it any longer, Auror Moody. I'm not going to learn the Unforgivable Curses."  
  
"You need to be prepared for the worst."  
  
"Learning the Unforgivables would be the worst." There was a thump, and then Harry said, "I will not do it. I will not be your obedient puppet or your tool. You will not question or persecute Snape. All of that is final, and if you have no other questions, I need to be going now. Severus is sure to be waking up by now, and I have to be there."  
  
There was a chorus of protests, all of them indistinct and jumbled together, and Severus had time to move back a pace before the door banged open. He clutched at the doorframe for support while he was enveloped in Harry's embrace. "You're here," Harry said into his shoulder.  
  
He had an armful of Harry, jolting against his chest. It throbbed, and Severus shifted, pushing Harry away. "Don't fuss over me," he said. "I'm still alive, as you can see."  
  
Harry covered his face with kisses, clinging to him and touching him with gentle, reverent hands. "You almost weren't – Severus, never do that to me again."  
  
Severus stilled Harry's kisses with a finger to his lips. "Don't, Harry ... hush, that's enough."  
  
Harry kissed his finger, reaching up to stroke his face. His fingers were soft, leaving butterfly-soft kisses on Severus's cheekbones. "I'm sorry I argued with you before you left."  
  
"No sentimental nonsense, and none of your romantic dribble, is that understood? We both survived, enough said."  
  
"If I'd argued with you just before you died –"   
  
Severus brushed Harry's hands away, grabbing them and pinning him against the wall. "We both survived – do you understand that? Do you realize that your own life was in danger? Do you even realize what you did, you foolish, stupid boy? If you were in my mind while I had died, you would have died as well."  
  
"I did what I felt I had to do," Harry said, holding still under Severus's touch. His magic flared, surrounding them in a warm glow, and he licked his dry lips, looking up at Severus. "I'm sure that you would say the same, even though I'm not happy about the way you risked your life, either."   
  
Harry broke free from his hold. He kissed Severus's neck, putting an arm around him. "I am sorry I argued with you before you left – you were right, you know. I couldn't have cast the Unforgivables."  
  
Severus ran a hand through Harry's hair, rubbing his scalp and tangling his locks together. "Well, keep that in mind for the future, then. Don't argue with me because I'm always right and you never know if I'll die the next day."  
  
"Hey, stop that. Don't make fun of me."  
  
"Enough," Severus said, pushing back from the wall, releasing Harry and grasping his hand to pull him along. "Let's be off."  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
Severus stopped and pulled Harry against him, resting his chin on Harry's head. He took a deep breath, his scar tissue stretching and burning as his chest expanded. "Where do you want to go?"  
  
He stilled Harry's confusion with a finger set against his temple. "We're not going back to Hogwarts – I'm finished there, and we're both better off if we're out of Dumbledore's reach. Where do you want to go?"  
  
"Where do I want to go? You should be resting in bed, Severus." Harry put his arm around Severus, supporting his weight. "I can't believe that you're out of the infirmary already."  
  
"Don't mollycoddle me." He twitched his shoulders as they started to walk, giving his robes their usual billow. "I'm perfectly well, as you see."  
  
\--------  
  
Severus pulled Harry past the golden fountain in the atrium and up through the telephone booth exit, stumbling over the uneven pavement as they exited. There was a taxi idling in the traffic circle, and Severus flagged it down, allowing Harry to support his weight. "Stop it, Potter. I'm no invalid," he said.  
  
"Wounded in the valiant effort to protect me from my own foolishness? I'd say you're a hero," Harry said. He kissed Severus on the cheek. "Enjoy it while it lasts, yeah? Let me pamper you for a while, then. A ... reward ... for my savior, you know?"  
  
He helped Severus into the taxi, hands lingering on his elbow. "Charing Cross Road," he told the driver.   
  
"What? Why are we going to Diagon Alley?" Severus pulled Harry closer, their thighs pressed together and Harry's warm weight against his side. He puffed a breath of air into Harry's ear, bending down to nibble on his earlobe.  
  
"Hyde Park, driver," he said. "The Green Dragon Inn is much less crowded than the Leaky Cauldron," he told Harry. "We'll be more comfortable there ... and safer."  
  
Harry kissed him, tangling their tongues together in a heated dance. He kissed his way from Severus's lips to his ear. "Almost lost you," he said in a whisper, his breath hot against Severus's skin. "Need you so much, Severus."  
  
Harry's hand snuck down to his hipbone, sliding across to the waistband of his trousers. He pulled away to look at him. "Can you cast a spell to keep the driver from noticing us for now?"  
  
"Fuck, yes." Harry unbuttoned his trousers, sliding down to kneel on the floor. The driver looked back just as Severus fumbled his wand out of his pocket, casting a quick Notice-Me-Not spell.   
  
"This all right?" Harry asked. Severus levered his hips up, letting Harry pull his pants down, and then spreading his legs to give Harry better access. His head fell back against the leather seat, and he gave himself over to Harry's ministrations, the soft touches and teasing licks.   
  
Harry pressed kisses to Severus's thighs, twisting at an awkward angle to reach him, and worked his way up to Severus's balls, kissing them before taking them into his mouth. He sucked, and his mouth was hot and wet. Severus moaned as Harry's tongue began working his balls, and when the driver looked back over his shoulder at the noise, he cast a quick silencing spell.   
  
"Harry." He clenched his hands in Harry's hair, pulling him up, and Harry grinned up at him, breathing across his wet balls with erratic, maddening puffs.  
  
"Yes? Did you want something?"   
  
"You know what I want," Severus said. He twisted in the seat, reaching down to cup Harry's erection through his trousers. "You want it too."  
  
His wand had clattered onto the seat beside him – Severus retrieved it, tapping Harry on the nose and pushing him away from his cock. "What do you have in your pockets?" he asked.  
  
"What? Is that some kind of twisted innuendo?" At Severus's pointed look, Harry began rifling through his pockets, coming up with his wand, a few Galleons and a chocolate bar.   
  
Severus took the chocolate, tapping it with his wand and Transfiguring it into a butt plug before he handed it back to Harry. "Pull your trousers down, and put this in without touching your cock."  
  
"Kinky," Harry said with a grin.   
  
"Having sex in a taxi is completely normal, of course," Severus said. He watched Harry wiggle in the confined space on the floor, pulling his pants down and twisting around to position the butt plug between his arse cheeks.   
  
Severus rapped his wand on Harry's wrist to stop him. He conjured a handful of lubricant and slicked two fingers with it, thrusting them into Harry, and smearing the rest of the lube on the butt-plug before handing it back to him. "Proceed."   
  
Harry's eyes fluttered shut as he slid the plug into himself, and Severus grasped his wand again, muttering the spell to conjure a cock ring. He smirked when Harry yelped at the sudden constriction around his cock and balls. "Pull your pants up," he said. "Now, suck me."  
  
"My hero," Harry said, "what reward do you not deserve?" Leaning over Severus's leg, Harry nuzzled his cock, rubbing his face along the hard length. With the tip of his tongue, he swiped delicate, narrow trails from the base to the head, teasing him with the light pressure.   
  
"Now, Harry," Severus said, splaying his hands out on the seat, fingers outstretched and trembling. They left sweaty prints, sticking to the leather, and he reached for Harry's hair instead. "We don't have much time before we get there – oh."   
  
Harry swallowed his cock, humming around it and reaching up to stroke his balls. With his other hand, he reached up to tease Severus's entrance, rubbing soft circles around it before thrusting a finger into it. He sucked Severus's cock with the same rhythm as he fucked him with his finger, and Severus closed his eyes, his head thumping back against the seat.   
  
"More ... fuck, Harry. I'm going to take you up into the hotel and fuck you so hard you can't stand for days, and I'm going to keep you in bed for all those days, fuck you again, keep you all to myself. I'm going to Transfigure that butt plug back into chocolate and eat it out of your arse – I'm going to eat you until you beg to be allowed to come, and I'm going to come in your pretty arse before I let you do it."  
  
Harry rubbed himself against Severus's leg, and sucked him harder, humming around his cock until Severus came. "Please, Severus, don't make me wait."  
  
"Don't come until I tell you to." With a flick of his wand, Severus Banished the cock ring, and then he pulled Harry up into his lap for a kiss. He tasted himself on Harry's mouth, fumbling Harry's trousers open and reaching in to stroke his cock.   
  
"Please ... fuck, Severus. Let me come."  
  
"Come for me," Severus said, and Harry obeyed, biting Severus's shoulder to muffle his moan.   
  
Bleary-eyed, Severus lifted his head to look out the window as they were turning the corner – the hotel was just ahead. He pushed Harry off his lap, rushing to button up his trousers and prodding Harry out of his afterglow to do the same. He took down the spells just as the driver stopped and paid him before stumbling out of the taxi.  
  
Harry took Severus's elbow, putting an arm around him to help him up the stairs into the hotel. They arranged for a room, Harry insisting on paying – "I've got plenty of my inheritance left, and it's not as though you have a job anymore," he said. He helped Severus up the stairs, steadying him every time the staircases shifted, and left him on a sofa next to a potted Flitterbloom while he hunted along the corridors to find their room.  
  
Severus left the sofa at once, following Harry and catching him with a hex. "Don't coddle me," he said. "You may do my bidding in bed if you're determined to give me some sort of reward, but do not coddle me."  
  
"Yes, Severus. You're perfectly fine – you don't need to be coddled at all. After all, you didn't almost bleed to death less than a day ago." Harry grinned at him, and Severus gritted his teeth before casting the counter-charm.   
  
Taking the big golden key from his pocket, Harry unlocked the door and used his wand to wave the lights on before entering. He flopped onto the bed, arms and legs flung out to take up all of the space, his hair a dark tangle against the pillows, his eyes gleaming in the soft light. "So," he said, "this is happily ever after, isn't it? I mean, with Voldemort dead, and the two of us in a private room with a very big bed ..."  
  
"What you call 'happily ever after' comes with the necessity of finding jobs, and a place to live, and learning whether we can tolerate each other on a long term basis or not," Severus said, standing at the foot of the bed and glaring up at Harry. "Don't expect romantic frippery or sunsets –"  
  
"I know, I know," Harry said, scrambling to his knees. He reached up to bring Severus's head down for a kiss. "Still, we do have a very big bed."  
  
He traced the line of Severus's jaw, trailing down his neck to the hollow at the base of his throat. "I know that you think I'm naïve and hopelessly romantic," he said, "but you've been through so much – you're too pessimistic sometimes, Severus. There's no Dark Lord trying to kill us, no prophecies or destiny to worry about, and this is happily ever after, no matter what you say."   
  
Severus slipped a hand in his pocket, taking out the revitalizing potion that Poppy had given him and downing it in one gulp. He set his wand next to the bedside table and started to strip, watching Harry's mouth fall open. "You're not going to argue with me? You're not going to tell me how foolish I'm being?"  
  
"I think you're old enough to be foolish if you want," Severus said. He unfastened his trousers and let them fall to the floor, stepping out of them and leaving them where they lay. "If you're foolish enough to want to bed me, you're old enough to do that too."  
  
The torches flared with Harry's magic and the heat in his eyes. He started to scramble out of his clothing, falling from the bed with a bump in his haste. "Hey," he said, "don't laugh at me like that."  
  
Severus stepped into the sphere of Harry's magic, feeling the warmth wash over his skin with long, tingling sweeps, and helped him up, pressing him against the nearest wall for a kiss. This was his salvation, his penance complete and his duty done.   
  
He kissed Harry until they were both breathless, fumbling as they raced to take their clothing off when he pulled away.   
  
"Severus ..." Harry's breath was warm against his skin, Harry's magic was a comfortable warm haze around him, and Harry was perfect in his arms. Severus swung him up, carrying him over to the bed and dropping him onto it.   
  
"Harry, my Harry." Severus flung his shirt across the room, joining Harry on the bed. He reached for his wand on the bedside table and prodded Harry with it. "Turn over, get on your hands and knees."  
  
"No," Harry said. "I think it's my turn to torture you for a change." He pushed Severus's wand aside, rolling over on top of him and capturing both of his hands at the wrist. With a silent spell, he bound them to the bedposts with conjured lengths of silk, and then gave the same treatment to his ankles. "Is this okay?"  
  
He settled over Severus's chest, tracing the scar there with a finger before he bent down to kiss a path along it.   
  
"Don't – don't touch me there."  
  
"Still tender?" Harry moved down, kissing his way down to Severus's navel and tonguing it. "You know, just because you have more experience in bed than I do doesn't mean that you can always boss me around."  
  
"Stop bringing up past sexual history in bed, Potter. It's bloody disconcerting, and I know you have enough experience to know that at least."  
  
Harry tapped his wand against his arse, casting a _Finite incantatem_ and sighing as Severus's Transfiguration was cancelled. "I liked your idea earlier," he said, and he positioned himself over Severus's face, reaching back to part his arse cheeks and moaning when Severus licked a long swipe across his opening.   
  
"You're going to fuck me," Harry said, his legs shaking as he struggled to hold his position. "You're going to be buried in me, and I'm going to keep you tied up like this, and I'm going to ride you until you come inside me."  
  
The chocolate began to melt at Harry's body temperature, and Severus began licking up the chocolate that oozed out of his hole. The sweetness of it was overlaid with the salty, musky flavor of Harry, the flavors swirling together on Severus's tongue. He put his lips over Harry's opening and sucked, making him squirm and fight to keep his balance.  
  
"Fuck, Severus, more, fuck that feels so good, fuck me with your tongue, please." He babbled as Severus thrust his tongue into him, licking at the melting bar. Severus hummed, his lips pressed against the sensitive skin there, and Harry lost his balance, teetering and then catching himself before he fell.  
  
He pulled away, moving down to slick Severus's cock with lube, stroking him while leaning up to kiss him. "You taste like chocolate," he said – breathless, his lips red, his hair tousled, he was beautiful.   
  
Severus thrust up against his restraints, and Harry laughed. "I could tease you the way that you always tease me, but I won't. Severus ..."  
  
Harry positioned himself over Severus's cock, and slid all the way down. He waited, clenching his muscles around Severus to tease him, a smile lighting up his face. "Daydreamed of this the whole time the Aurors were interrogating me ... fuck, Severus ..."  
  
"Harry, let me go, I want to fuck you." Severus strained against the restraints, and Harry shook his head.  
  
"I can't let you overexert yourself now that you're injured, can I?" He waited for a heartbeat longer, still teasing Severus, and then he set a fast pace, moving up and down and fucking himself on Severus's cock.   
  
He reached over to stroke the unscarred skin on Severus's chest and pinch his nipples, and then he slicked his hand with lube again, starting to stroke his cock. Magic flared around them as Harry came closer to his climax.  
  
Severus closed his eyes to appreciate the supernova flare of it, the hot prickle of it against his skin, along his nerves – it ran through him, down to the base of his spine and into his cock. Gripped by Harry's tight muscles, afire with Harry's magic, Severus used what leverage he had to thrust his hips up into Harry, fucking him harder.  
  
"Come for me," Harry said, just as Severus was on the edge – the low, throaty voice, the sight of Harry touching himself, and Severus was undone. He came, and Harry echoed his release, spurting it all over Severus's pale skin before he slumped down onto him.   
  
He unbound Severus and cleaned them both with gentle spells before pulling the blankets back and tucking Severus into the bed. "Plenty of rest tonight so we can do that again tomorrow, all right?"   
  
Harry curled up next to Severus, breathing soft warm puffs like dandelion down onto his bare shoulder. "Thank you, Severus," he murmured as he drifted off to sleep.   
  
His Harry – protected and protector, penance and redemption, nuisance and love – Severus threw an arm around him, moving slowly to save his scar tissue any stretching or pain. The room was dim around them, with no darkness or light except for the hum of their own magic, the blending of their auras.   
  
It was a warm and comfortable half-embrace, it was a tangle of arms and legs, and it was a symphony of breath and heartbeat. Redemption came to Severus in an embrace, a heartbeat, a kiss – it came in the patient toil of years and the subtle workings of destiny – it came in the whisper of Harry's breath on his bare skin.  
  
 _fin_


End file.
